More Christmas Birds

Following on from yesterday's card, these cards use more elaborate patterned paper backgrounds that I felt didn't need any stamping.

 

Some Barn Door distress ink was sponged around the chest area of this bird to give it the feel of a Robin, and matching chipboard embellishments were fixed to both cards with a dab of Pinflair.

All these cards use patterned papers that came free with last year's card magazines.

Entered for the following challenges:
Crafty Little Fairies - Christmas in October

Christmas Bird

Here's another Christmas card design using up patterned paper scraps. You don't always need to use Christmas diecuts on your cards.

"Christmas Bird"

This card uses a Sizzix bird die to make the Christmas bird by cutting the bird from Christmas patterned paper and recycled packaging, then sticking the two together giving a thick, chipboard type embellishment. Some Baker's twine is wrapped around the background before fixing to the front of the card to provide a "perch". The background paper is embossed, stamped and coloured with distress markers.

Come back tomorrow to see some more birdy Christmas cards using this design.

Entered for the following challenges:
Crafting Musketeers - Christmas in October
Christmas Cards all year round - Getting ready for Christmas
The Crafting Cafe - Anything Goes
Craft Room Challenge - Our Feathered Friends
Creative Craft Challenges 2 - Anything Goes
Deep Ocean Challenge - Christmas is Round The Corner

Tuesday Technique - a Patchwork Background

This last month amongst other things I've been busy making Christmas cards for our local hospice. I've come up with a few money saving tips, and thought it would be fun to share this one with you.

 

Here in the UK, we often get 6" x 6" (15cm x 15cm) paper pads free with magazines, but the most common size of cheap card blank is A6 (approx 6" x 4" or 15cm x 10cm). So, you cut the paper down to size to mat and layer onto the front of your card and what do you do with all the patterned paper strips left over? Here's an idea...

1. 6" x 6" (14.8cm x 14.8cm) patterned paper.

 

2. Cut into two pieces 6" x 4" (14.8cm x 10cm) and 6" x 2" (14.8cm x 5cm)

 

3. Cut the smaller piece in half to make 2 pieces 3" x 2" (7.4cm x 5cm)

4. Once you have a pile of these offcuts, choose 4 whose colours match.

 

5. Add a thin smear of PVA glue to the reverse of one of the 4 offcuts.

6. Stick to the corner of a sheet of thin copy paper.

7. Apply PVA to the reverse of another offcut then adhere to the copy paper, butting the edge right up against the first piece and leaving a straight edge along the top.

 8. Add the third offcut as shown, placing the bottom right corner carefully at the join of the first two pieces.

 

9. Stick the last one in place. The fourth offcut fits into the gap perfectly!

10. Remove the excess copy paper with a guillotine.

11. Trim the edges neatly with a guillotine and cut to size to fit the front of an A6 card blank.

12. Ink the edges sparingly with distress ink using a piece of cut 'n' dry foam.

13. Add faux stitching with the fine point of a distress marker.
N.B. If the paper colours are dark, I often lighten them with some white stamped snowflakes and make the stitching with a white Inkssentials pen.

14. Finally, adhere to the front of a card blank, add some stamping and a diecut and you're done.
I'll be sharing lots more of my Christmas cards with you over the next few weeks so hope to see you again soon. Maddy x

Entered for the following challenge:
Lawnscaping - Patterned Paper Craze
Ladybug Crafts - Pierce, Sew or Inky Stitch

All Creatures Great and Small

Goodness, it's October. Where did Summer go? Well here I am back again with another creation for my DT spot at Stamping Sensations. This month we are asking you to come up with a creation for the theme "All Creatures Great and Small". We have a fabulous prize, but more of that later. First, here's my project:

"All Creatures Great and Small"

The box frame came from that Swedish company that always has bits and pieces that look fun to decorate! It was originally painted white, but I took my alcohol inks to it to give the mottled blue effect, then overstamped all the foliage with brown archival ink. The background is inked onto pearlescent card to give a similar effect to the frame and bordered with strips of black lace.

"Red Admiral"

Each of the insects is stamped onto watercolour paper with archival ink and coloured with distress markers. Now for the news you've been waiting for, the fabulous prize from Penny Black!! I can't wait to see what you all create to join in with us this month.

Penny Black invite you to explore their creative world and see for yourself why their rubber stamps, stickers, beautiful papers for scrapbooking, cardmaking and stamp crafting are everyone’s favourites. Their products are designed to integrate style and colour for creating the best handicraft projects ever. Be one of the first to hear about new stamps and products by joining the club for free.

"Prize"

 

Entered for the following challenges:

Joanna Sheen - So Sweet

Penny Black and More - Anything Goes

Pile it On - Favourite Colour as Main Colour

Stamping Sensations September Challenge - Poppy Inspired

I hope you'll join in with the theme this month at Stamping Sensations, which if you haven't guessed already is "Poppy Inspired". We want you to be inspired by poppies and as always there is a fabulous prize from our sponsor this month "Stamps by Chloe". We are giving away ***** to the top entry, so please have a go, and also check out the fab inspiration from my team mates!

I love poppies, so when I recently made a book card for a dear friend I thought they would be perfect!

"Live in the moment poppy card"

That sentiment is from Tim Holtz and is one of my favourites... "Live in the moment and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering".

This particular group of friends is known fondly as "the bunnies", so I had to put a bunny in amongst the poppies...The poppies are made using my button flower technique, but with the addition of some red tissue paper flowers diecut from the Spellbinders Rose Creations die.

The front cover is stamped and heat-embossed in gold using the same IndigoBlu stamp set that I used for the inside.

Variations on a Theme - Window Boxes

You wait ages for a card, then two come along at once :-) I recently had to make cards for a couple getting married (congratulations April and Darren!) and a couple getting engaged (congratulations Abbi and Phil!) and thought it would be fun to adapt my window box design with a white and silver theme. Hope you like it!

..then I made another for one of Tom's nieces 18th birthday. It's amazing how different a card can look just for changing the colour scheme:

 

I just love the way that lady is peeping from the window (she is cut from a Graphic45 Birdsong paper pad in case you were wondering).

Entered for the following challenge:
Emma's Cards - Floral
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - make the cut
Ladybug Crafts August Challenge - something floral

Stamping Sensations Challenge - Wings & Things & A Touch Vintage

This month the Stamping Sensations team are challenging you to make a project which features wings and things and a little bit vintage. Our fabulous sponsor is CraftyDevilsPapercraft and they are offering a magnificent prize to the winner of a £35 gift voucher, so we would love to see lots of entries!

My good friends Lee and Kathy have given me quite a bit of gorgeous lace, but I had it stored in a couple of boxes and could never find the bit I wanted. Then I spied a plain wooden kitchen roll holder in a charity shop and thought it would make the ideal lace storage, once it was altered of course!

"Bespoke Lace Storage"

Here's what it looked like after I cleaned it, but before I started decorating...

"Charity Shop Bargain"

First of all, the knobs were all removed and the edges painted with black acrylic, then patterned papers were used to cover the wooden faces...

"Knobs removed and edges painted"

Some splodges of paint were added from distress stain bottles, along with some butterflies. The butterflies are stamped onto watercolour paper with coffee archival ink, then coloured in with distress markers and a detail water brush before cutting out, shaping and adhering with Pinflair.

"Box Mark 1"

Now, it should have been nearly finished at this point, but I decided I didn't like it! I removed the butterflies and repainted the whole thing using acrylic paints and my fingers (it was hot and I took the project outside and just got down right and dirty with the paints :-). Then I overstamped with coffee archival ink and added lots more butterflies. After it had dried, I wrapped all the longest lengths of lace around the spindle, securing each with a pin and filled the drawer with all the rest of the lace on wooden dolly pegs.

"Box Mark II"

Much better! Mixing distress paints with your fingers allows you to blend the colours and is lovely for giving soft backgrounds. I love the clouds. I also used some distress reinker to colour white paint because I only have a few distress paints and wanted more colours.

"Lots more butterflies and a diamond knob "

That gorgeous knob was another pressie from my bessie mate Lee aka craftyloops - thanks Lee!

Ingredients:

Crate Paper Maggie Holmes 12" x 12" paper pad

adhesives: PVA, glossy accents, pinflair

distress paints: Salty Ocean, Tattered Rose, Picket Fence

Bundled Sage reinker (used to colour the white acrylic paint)

Dayler Rowney Simply Acrylics: white, medium green, black

Cosmic Shimmer glue: teal (for the dots)

butterfly stamps from 7Gypsies, Graphic45 and Artemio

archival ink: Coffee

distress markers: worn lipstick, barn door, tea dye, tumbled glass, broken china, faded jeans, milled lavender, dusty concord, chipped sapphire, mustard seed, spiced marmalade, scattered straw, walnut stain

wooden kitchen roll holder from charity shop

diamond knob