Make It Simple Monday - In My Heart

Well, Cary has once again surprised me by making a stamp set that I don't like, much more favourable! Another one that I now need to buy! This week I will be working with a lovely stamp set that I kept looking at in the catalogue but didn't buy until very recently. So I need to make an effort and see what I can make with it. The set is called In My Heart and is a set of 9 stamps that are really pretty. Please let me know what you think?

A simple image stamped in a light grey onto a white mat and then just using some ordinary colouring pencils to colour the image in. I even made a border with a green pencil to edge the mats!

This or That Thursday - Detailed Dogwood - Happy New Year

 Hello, Happy Christmas to those who are still celebrating and hello to those of you preparing for the New Year celebrations too. I hope that you have all had a wonderful time with friends and family. I apologise for my absence this week so far. It has been very busy and lots of very excited little ones with all of the family here so please forgive me for not having posted this week? Now I am here today as everyone is beginning to go home and I now have room to craft once again. I am using one of the free stamp sets from Sale-A-Bration this week called Detailed Dogwood. It's a really lovely stamp set with what I would call a vintage style flower and branch on and it is rather lovely. 

I haven't managed to make the 2 cards as I should have done so once again I apologise. Today's is a simple flower stalk stamped onto a mat, coloured with my stampin' blends pens and I then fussy cut it out. You can just stamp it onto a mat rather than fussy cut out but I added mine using Dimensionals (foam shapes) onto a Fern, embossed mat. 

I have used the soft lemon of Lemon Lolly and soft green of Granny Apple Green card and ink colours on Basic White card. 

So here it is, my welcome back and Happy New Year card to all of you, the sentiment came from Horse and Sleigh

 

 

 Happy New Year

Technique Tuesday - Everlasting Beauty

 Today was a bit of a challenge but easier after I thought about it. Using the stamp set Everlasting Beauty, I stamped and coloured many, many of the images of this flower. It really wasn't working out as I had hoped until my son and his daughter came home. They fell in love with the colours on this flower here. I started with a simple mat that I stamped the flowers in the gorgeous soft grey of Smoky Slate. Starting in the centre, I stamped the flower randomly over the mat and then using a blending brush, I added some layers of the beautiful soft baby pink of Bubble Bath. It was the green that I had problems with as I hadn,t completely worked it out in my head which colour was correct. After several tries, I fell in love with the gorgeous bluish-green of Lost Lagoon. That was it! That was the one that I needed. I knew instantly I saw it that it was the correct one.

Technique Tuesday - Silly Goose

 Hello again. This week I am using the Silly Goose stamp set. I love this set and bought it quite a while ago but I have never gotten around to doing anything with them! Todays' technique to me is the simplest one of repeat stamping to make the background. I love the simple and quick ways of making a card as well as the more fiddly ways of creating. I stamped the Goose all over the white mat and stamped him again on a scrap of white card then fussy cut him out. It wasn't difficult or fiddly very straightforward in fact. I wanted him to match the card base so I coloured the Thanks in using the beautiful bright blue of Tahitian Tide Blends pen. I punched a circle out of the blue using the 2,3/4" circle punch and using Dimensionals (foam shapes) I raised him up. 

Make it Smple Monday - #simplestamping - Gift of Giving and Joy To You

 Hello. First I must apologise for being late today! Life!! My card today is made using the 2 stamp sets. I have used the Gift of Giving which is a perfectly wonderful stamp set that will function on it's own and I have matched it with the Joy To You. 2 wonderful stamp sets that are great on their own as well as being co-ordinated together too. A simple card, I stamped the cup in a very light grey ink as I dont want too much definition and I want the colour to show. I have used my watercolour pencils today as my grand-daughter has acquired her pencils back to do some homework! Tut! Tut! I haven't used the watercolour brush, I literally used them as pencils.

Technique Tuesday - Beary Christmas

 Hello, today's technique is making a plain simple card look more interesting by embossing a plain background. We all know that embossing a mat gives an amazing texture anyway but this card has some of the gorgeous Textured Shimmer Paper and a plain white mat. I used a C6 card base in Night of Navy and with the white polar bears on top of the white mat just looked lost. I embossed the white mat with the new Snowflake Sky 3D embossing folder. I think it gives just the right effect, I hope you do. 

Fun Fold Friday - Children's Cards - Festive and Fun

Well, here we are and it's Friday already. Doesn't time fly when you are having fun? Today's card is one that I fully intend to use for all of my grand-children. It is called Festive and Fun  and I have used this lovely set in full. 

Using an A4 sheet of Shaded Spruce I cut it in half lengthwise that is 10.5cm by 29.7cm long. I then scored it at 14.85cm and 7.4cm on one side only on both of the pieces. I folded the 2 scored panels on each piece to face outwards. I slid the 2, C6 panels together and glued them in position. When I folded the sides into the middle, the centres met and it gave me a shallow and wide, Gatefold card base.  I then cut another piece of Shaded Spruce at 14.85cm by 10.5cm ( a standard C6 mat). This was then attached to the left front on the gatefold card base.

 

I cut white mats to size for each of the green ones starting with the front panel which I obviously embossed first then added fussy cut images and the sentiment onto. 

 

Above is the inside left panel. I added 4 small panels on the insides of the card with DSP from the Merry Bold and Bright range of papers. Aren't they cute?

 

 

the right hand inside panel ....

 

 

The centre panel with all of the images stamped and fussy cut ('cos I love to fussy cut). I added Dimensionals on the sides of the card and using Tombow, I adhered the Rhino to the centre mat.

The finished card complete and from above so that you can see the whole of the layout.

That is it from me for another week. Cary is back from Las Vegas now and will be sharing her creations with you next week so please do pop by and see what amazing things she will be making. 

Thank you as always for joining me this week, I so hope that you have been inspired in some ways to make your own cards. Have a good week and I will be back the following week. Until then ....

STAY SAFE, STAY WELL but as always.......

KEEP ON CRAFTING!

Thank you once again, 

 😍😍 xxx Gill xxx 😍😍

 

Make It Simple Monday - #simplestamping - Children's Cards

 Hello and thank you for stopping by. This week I am not going to use a specific stamp set, I am making cards for children. We don't often get the time for them and mine are usually made with the child in mind. So today's card is a very simple and straighTforward one for a Baby. It could double as a congratulations on the birth of the baby or even a 1st birthday. I used the New stamp set available now from your demonstrator called Beary Cute and it really is that too.

I stamped the bears straight onto a piece of white card, added the sentiments and found some Balmy Blue ribbon on as well as a little extra. 

Make It Simple Monday - Backgrounds - Berry Harvest

 Hello, I hope that you have all had a great week? I love the little truck that Cary used for last week, don't you? This week, I am going to make different projects using some of the Background stamps and dies. Today's card is using the beautiful, Berry Harvest stamp. This single stamp has loads of berries all over it and I stamped the image using the very light grey of Smoky Slate Ink Pad. I chose this colour as it's much lighter than black and easier to colour over. All I did was colour in the one stem or branch to highlight. Once again it was coloured in using some very cheap pencils. They are not as good as Stampin' Up!s Watercolour pencils but it is actually a very simple card that anyone can make. It's a very easy card to do too.
#simplestamping

 

Make It Simple Monday - #simplestamping - Coffee With Friends

 Hello, I do hope that you have had a great week? This week I am using another of the new stamp sets from the Annual catalogue. It is called Coffee With Friends. It actually isn't one that I would generally go to but like many other sets, this was calling to me! Every time I opened the catalogue, it almost jumped out at me! Do you ever get that with anything? I have lately, weird isn't it?

Anyway, starting with a plain white card base and Basic White mat, I stamped the image of the coffee cups and croissants several times across the mat. It's not always necessary to add a mat but I like to show that there is a single mat on a card. I used Smoky Slate which is a very soft gray ink pad. Then my fun part...I coloured them in using colouring pencils. It needed a background too so I just coloured some light blue/green pencil across the background. I added sentiment onto the ovals punched from the double oval punch to finish. #simplestamping

Make It Simple Monday - Cheerful Daisies

 Hello and welcome back this week. As always, Cary made some marvellous cards with those cheeky little monkeys last week didn't she? My cards this week will be using the gorgeous Cheerful Daisies stamp set. There is something about seeing daisies at the beginning of spring that I just love. So delicate and simple they come up year after year without fail. Perfect! My simple card for today is some #simplestamping. I started by adding a strip of sticky note across the centre of the page and stamped around and over it using Smoky Slate, a very soft gray. Then using the fill-in stamp, I stamped using the beautiful NEW colour of Lemon Lolly, a beautiful soft lemon-yellow ink inside. That was it. Simple enough?

Fun Fold Friday - Dainty Delight

 Friday is here already and my last card although is a fun fold, it is an easy one. This isn't my design it's one that I saw on Pinterest by Connie Stewart in USA. She called it her Valentine fun fold.  It's brilliant! I made my card base in the lovely Misty Moonlight card that has just been returned to us as a staple colour. It is a mid blue not as dark as Night of Navy but it's going to be used as much as it was too. I am so pleased it's back. I cut 3 white mats. One was 9.5cm by 14.4cm and 2 which are 9cm by 11cm. Using the Dainty Delight stamps, I stamped the largest image onto the largest white mat and each of the 2 other images onto a mat. I have kept the design very simple once again with just a flower and a sentiment on each mat.  

I have made my chart in metric measurements, if you would like them worked out in Imperial (inches) please let me know. I have cut a piece of card portrait style at 29.7cm by 14.8cm, I scored at 4.9c, and 9.9cm from each side landscape. I turned the card portrait again and measured 1.5cm from each side between the 2 score lines and cut them. This was repeated on the other long edge too. I then cut through the score line nearest the centre on each side. I added some DSP on the 2 outer edges and the 4 narrow 1.5cm deep bars at the top and bottom. I cut 2 Balmy Blue mats 9.5cm by 11.5cm and adhered each one to the second of the scored panels on each side so that the edge of the paper goes toward the cut inner part of the card base. I added the 2 white mats onto the Balmy Blue mats and the White mat in the centre I  have since the photos, added a Balmy Blue mat behind that too. 

I knew there was something not quite balanced in my card and only as I was writing about it did I realise what was missing! To err is human I am told and boy ... am I human! 😁😁

 

That's it from me for another week, thank you so much once again for stopping by. I do hope that you have been inspired to make some cards for yourself to give to others too. Today's card will be going to my Daughter in law's mum for her birthday. I do make a lot of birthday cards as I am always sending them out!

Cary will be back to share her creations with you next week so until I return the week after next, please stay safe, keep well and as always, 

KEEP ON CRAFTING.

😍😍 xx Gill xx 😍😍

Below is the link for the Imperial measurements and the video of Connies that I watched. Copy and paste the link below and it will take you straight to it.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=connie+stewart+vaentine+card#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:c151e98a,vid:Ojxn9AXlq2M