This or That Thursday - Crafting With You

 Hello and here we are already set for the 2 cards at once day. Before I found paper crafting I used to sew as I have said already this week. It was my passion, my daily focus once the children were at school and as I said before I would often be up until the very early hours of the morning making a garment of one kind or another. I have made wedding dresses, bridesmaids dresses, suits for a pop group, uniforms, going out and staying in clothes too. The list goes on but now my new love and passion is making cards especially with Stampin' Up! products. There is no searching around lots and lots of different shops trying tol find card, paper to match, ribbons, buttons, gems etc all again to match. It was an impossible nightmare...Until Cary met someone who introduced us to the Stampin' Up! way of buying craft products. We were hooked! We still are nearly 20 years later. We would have been before but it didn't come to the UK until I believe 2008 or 2009. We became demonstrators within a very short space of time and still feel the same about it to this day. So today's card using the Crafting With You stamp set and dies, I have encompassed both of my passions into 2 different but very similar cards. Using Sticky notes, or Post It notes, I made several masks of both sewing maching and Cut and Emboss machine. I hope that you can choose which you prefer. 

THIS and THAT

  THIS

 

THAT

  

Watercolour Wednesday - Crafting With You

 Hello on another wet Wednesday. Using the lovely stamp set Crafting With You today, I have gone back to school so to speak! My uniform when at school was exactly the colours I have used here... Black Skirt, Yellow blouse and black or white socks! This was purely by accident until I had finished the card I hadn't realised what I'd done! I think it was the board and easel stand that I suddenly saw my uniform again! Anyway, a semi simple watercolour today. I started by stamping the board and easel onto a plain white mat and then with some cut offs of watercolour paper that I had, I laid them out in the order you see and stamped the image again. It worked!! I used the watercolour from the block technique as it works really well so it was just a case of adding the colour to the flowers and leaves and it was complete. I used Stazon Jet Black Ink for the easel but it looks red here??? How odd! 

Apologies for the wrong pictures to start off with. Here are the correct ones!

Technique Tuesday - Sale-a-bration -Softly Sophisticated

 Hello again and thank you for stopping by. Today's stamp set is the pretty Softly Sophisticated. As I said yesterday, I really do love the Designer Series Papers DSP that are in the Sale-a-bration SAB catalogue this month. This set is really so delicate and can be used for many different style of cards especially when pairing it with the gorgeous DSP's. That is one of the most interesting things about what crafters do, we mix and match with all sorts of products. It's great isn't it? The paper I used today is called Sunny Days 12" by 12".

Anyway, my technique this week is using up some of the scraps on my table. I'm sure that we all have those bits and pieces somewhere waiting to be used and Oh! Boy! Do I have a load of them! I used my black and red colours today, which is another of my favourite colour combinations. I started by embossing 3 pieces of the coloured card using the Softly Sophisticated embossing folder. Once embossed, I started to play with layering them, placing one piece under and over another until I got the combination that I was happy with. I cut a narrow gap down the centre of the black and red mats and taped the piece of plain white through the slot onto the back of the mats. I stamped the images in just black (Memento) and the gorgeous red of Poppy Parade and added the sentiments inside and out.

Technique Tuesday - Love Cats

 Todays card is a simple one. All I have done is matted and layered the mats on the card. Something so simple but I rather like the simplicity of the effect it gives. Using the Love Cats stamp set, I stamped the image of the catonto a mat of white card. I then stamped another and fussy-cut it out and layered it over the top of the stamped image. It was then just a case of adding mat after mat until I got the required effect. I repeated the same with the sentiment. They were both adhered to Gray Granite card stock.

 

Technique Tuesday - Apple Harvest

Well, the heat is still here and we,ve been forecast for the first time ever, an amber alert for excessive heat on Sunday coming. That is the possibilty of us coping with 40 degrees of sun and heat! WOW!! It's going to be hot! Today's project is one that I often use but with a twist. Using the Apple Harvest stamp set, I used a cello bag and added a few drops of each of the 3 different colours ink refills. I used a gorgeous fresh and bright green of Granny Apple Green, a really bright red of Poppy Parade and a rich, unctuous yellow of Mango Melody. Then I spritzed the ink and cello bag with lots of cold water. I laid the C6 white mat onto the inks and left it there for a few minutes while it soaked the colour up.

Once it was dry and I had cleaned up, I stamped the apples several times all over the mat. Just for a change, my next move was fussy cutting them all out! I embossed a soft blue mat in Balmy Blue card and also a scrap of white card using the lovely Thanks and Hello embossing folder duo set. I embossed the Thanks folder on both and with the white, I gently dragged the ink pad in Balmy Blue across it in different directions just to colour the word Thanks only. Then I fussy cut all around it.