Watercolour Wednesday - Embraced With Love

 Hello again. Today I have actually done some proper watercolouring again. After stamping the image onto a piece of Fluid 100 water colour paper, I started to watercolour. Now I'm not sure what the animals actually are but to me they look like racoons. Once again I'm not sure what colours they are so I have used Pecan Pie and Cajun Craze ink pads to water colour them in. I also used the Whisper White Ink pad to tone in with some of the colour and mixed it over to make some of the lighter parts. Basically, I roughly copied the images in the seasonal catalogue! I actually stamped 5 lots of these and eventually settled on the colour combo that I liked. I apologise to animal lovers if my colouring is wrong. I really enjoy the calm of water colouring it is so relaxing. The brush slides across the paper and the paper soaks up the colour so quickly that you have to work well with some tissue or something to soak up the water and build the colour up in many layers. 

I recently pre-ordered a pack of NEW DSP from the Winter seasonal Mini catalogue and I used a piece for the mat on my card base. It is called Splendid Autumn. They are 6" by 6" papers and they are gorgeous. The scenery in them all so beautiful and the backs of the papers are just as stunning too! I added the fussy cut animals into the centre of the flowers to show them nestling down for a cuddle.

I then finished off by adding a sentiment or 2. I used the Oval duo punch for the sentiment on the front of my card.

Tips Tricks and Techniques Tuesday - Crafting With You

 Hello and thank you for joining me again. Firstly , I must apologise. I am sorry but I thought that Cary had made some projects using the Crafting With You stamp set before. It turned out it was me! The second thing is that Cary has now decided to buy the set too!! 😁😁 Anyway, today's card is a techy one as it folds and holds together with just a simple flower spray. Before I found crafting, I was an avid sewing nut! I loved to sew and you would always find me up until the very early and late hours of the morning making or altering something for me or someone else. Sadly, my hands don't work well enough so I stick with my second love, Crafting. 

I made a card base half the full length of an A4 piece of card and 10.5cm wide. It is a side fold card but landscape style instead of portrait. I added another smaller piece of card to the right and made a small fold then attached it to the main card base.  I used some of the papers from the new In Colour series of papers. I chose the peachy colour. It's gorgeous. I stamped a sewing machine in Smoky slate and fussy cut it out. I had a few die cuts from an old set of dies which have retired and used them. They were from the Stitched Nested Labels. I embossed the front one with the Fun Patterns folder again another retired one. I must take all of my retired ones out!

Fun Fold Friday - Grassy Grove

 Hello, here we are already on Friday! Why I don't make myself more adventurous and splash colour around when making scenes, I have no idea. I love the colours in today's card. Using the Grassy Grove stamp set and dies, today I have coordinated the stamps with some of the brand NEW designer series papers. They are called Thoughtful Journey. A pack of 48, 6" x 6" papers! They are stunning as you can see from the card today! The papers have so many gorgeous colours in and the designs too are gorgeous. Look out for them now in your NEW catalogues. You don't have a copy? Please leave us a private message at the bottom of the page and we will be happy to send one out to you. 

The fold for today is one that I have made before and it's really lovely and simple. An A5 or C5 piece of card folded in half and then each half in half again. Sound simple? It really is. Then marking 2.5cm from the top and the bottom through the centre panels and the same from the edges of the centre panels to add the Fresh Freesia card. The card was embossed with the NEW So Swirly embossing folder. A few reindeer and some trees completes the card. 

As always, that's it from me for another week. Cary will be back to inspire you on Monday and I will return the following Monday. 

Until then, take card, stay safe but as always

KEEP ON CRAFTING!!

Take care, Gill 

xxx 😍😍xxx😍😍 xxx

Tips Tricks and Techniques Tuesday - Grassy Grove

 Hello, today my card is more grungy than I am used to. I am trying to push myself a little...though it is quite hard for an old girl to use new tricks! 😅 Using the Grassy Grove stamp set again today along with some daubers, I took the largest stamp and added ink to the stamp using a brownish grey of Gray Granite and the green from yesterday of Old Olive. Then with another dauber, I added some different colour in the form of a blueish green called Pretty Peacock. The colours of inks were all taken from the ink pad with the daubers alone and not direct to the stamp at all.

 

Technique Tuesday - Magnolia Mood

 Hello again. My card today is a very easy one. Using the stamp set Magnolia Mood, and a mat 7cm by 10.5cm white mat and placed it in the centre of a White mat 10.5cm by 14.4cm then stamped an image on both opposite corners of the mats. As you can see, they overlapped the corners. I then stamped 2 more to go to the actual outer corners. There will be a small gap where the images were stamped because of the thickness of the card. That's not a problem as the next thing to do is to adhere the small mat onto a matching piece of coloured card. This would be approximately 0.5cm larger than the actual card mat. 

I added it to the card front and coloured the flowers all using my Stampin' Blends pens. 

That was it.

 

 

Thoughtful Expressions - Fun Fold Friday

 Hello for this fun fold Friday card. This is the last one from me for this week and I have been inspired by a Christmas card I had from a lady in my team. Her name is Lynn Beatty and she makes the most beautiful cards as well as gorgeous wreaths, table decorations, gift packaging, bags, boxes, the list goes on. A very clever and lovely lady. Using the Thoughtful Expressions, I stamped several of the large flowers and the small flower too. I started by cutting 2, A6 card bases and then trimmed one of them, in this case a white one down by 0.5cm on the top and the side. The Real Red card is the C6 card and the smaller white one, was adhered to the inside of the card base on the right hand side of the base card. I have just received a pack of the Most Adored DSP which is another SABand has just been added in to the free items. We have another lot of Saleabration items bought in including current stamp sets, Stampin' Write Marker pens, the colour core collection too. Remember for every £45 order from the catalogues you get to chose a free item from the Saleabration catalogue too! What a great deal it is!

 

 

Above is the card from Lynn I had at Christmas and below is a picture of the gorgeous coordination dies that go with the matching stamp set of the same name as the stamp set.

 

 

Below is the Most Adored DSP that I used. 

I used 2 different mats of the DSP which is pink, red or white patterned on one side and gold patterned on the other side.I folded the right hand side of the White card base in half straight down and it was there that I adhered the red die cut mat to.

I used the dies to cut the centre panel out once I had stuck the 2 pieces of DSP on.  I didn't add Tombow to the centre of the DSP's. As you can see, I used the red mat of the card base for the inner fold.

 

 

Once the central mat was on, I started to decorate the rest of the card. I added a few fussy cut flowers from another piece of the DSP to the inside too. I love it!

 

That is it from me again this week, I will return the week after next as Cary will be sharing some of her fabulous creations with you next week. 

As always take care, stay safe and keep well but as always,

😍😍xxx KEEP ON CRAFTING xxx  😍😍

 Gill xx

This or That Thursday - Thoughtful Expressions

Well hello again for this lovely Thursday. I say lovely as we have been forecasted to get some very cold weather and snow in the coming weeks so today is lovely! Today's 2 cards using the beautiful Thoughtful Expressions are very similar, obviously but with the slight differences of papers and embellishments. The papers are from the Perennial Lavender suite, another set that is equally beautiful as the stamp set. 

The 2 cards were cut as A6 cards and half of the front of the card base was removed from both. I cut 2 pieces of DSP from the lavender papers and cut an A6 piece of paper 10cm by 14.4cm then cut it in half at 5cm. One of each halves was placed on the left and the other half obviously on the right. I was intending to leave it white but thought better of it.

 

 THIS

For this one, I used the beautiful hummingbird. My colouring isn't the best but I think it's my interpretation of it. Whether it is or not, I have no idea but that's one of mine! I die cut the circular patterned shape from the Thoughtful Espressions dies, added the sentiment, flowers and bird.

 

THAT

My that card I have obviously made in the different paper but no bird of this one. Just flowers and leaves.

 

 

 Now it's your turn to say which is your preferred card, if there is one. 

Watercolour Wednesday - Thoughtful Expressions

 Hello on a very wet Wednesday! Today's watercolour card was great fun to make. I started by cutting a strip of watercolour paper 14.85cm long by approximately 7cm wide. I thoroughly soaked it with water from the spritzer and then using my re-inker bottles, lightly I scribbled the ink across the card. I repeated it a few times with different colours and once I was happy with the them, I put it aside to dry. Prior to me stamping using the Thoughtful Expressions stamp set, I cut a tent fold card base which is 29.7cm long, scored at 14.85cm and 10.5cm wide. I then cut a white mat with the dies from the Around The Bend. It gave a really lovely curve across the card which was what I wanted. 

I cut the coloured mat to 14.4cm as I left it slightly longer than I wanted and just trimmed the ends down. Once I had positioned it onto the front of the card, I could mark the mat where I needed to trim it. I positioned the now 2 pieces onto the card base and adhered more or less centrally to the card. I adhered the die cuts to the top and bottom of the card base and then played with the scraps of inked watercolour card. I stamped some of the flowers and die cut using some of flowers and swirls from the Thoughtful Expressions dies.

The rest as you can see is easy. I just placed them onto the mat and then adhered them into place.

Here you can see the finished mats before they were die cut and stamped on. I really had fun today. Not a messy one like like Cary had on her LIVE on Monday but fun nonetheless. :)) 

Technique Tuesday - Thoughtful Expressions

 Hello and I hope that you are all busy creating in one way or another. It doesn't matter what and how you create but everyone ... and I believe this, everyone creates something every day! Whether it's just putting on coordinated clothing, decorating your home, creating a meal, we all create something every day! Today I am working with the gorgeous Thoughtful Expressions stamp set. I have added some of the beautiful double sided papers called Countryside Inn. I used 2 pieces for this one by trimming it down on the front by a small amount and added paper to the right-hand side of the card where the back of the card is showing. Another bird, once again drinking from the flowers.  

I used a die from the matching set of dies for the 2 white die-cuts and added some Misty Moonlight card behind the DSP and on the inside of the card.