Pale Blue Delights

Good Morning Everyone

Its a very very cold day, yesterday the hard frost we woke to find didn’t clear all day and with temperatures dropping again through the night the frost looks hazardous today...not that I had to go out but it would stop me anyway as have big concerns about falling

Enough of the weather for now

I had such a good card making day yesterday, I’ve got 2 cards to share today, these are both for swaps one theme was pale blue and the other was anything of my own choice.

Let’s start with the pale blue card, it was a sheet I bought from www.craftsuprint.com and is by Sue Douglas and called the Floral Collection

So for the card I started by folding a sheet of whit 16”x8” card to create an 8x8 card then coloured around the edges of the card with light blue pan pastels then a light touch of lemon which softened the blue.

When I laid the base image against the card, the card was far too big so I chopped it down, I matted the image onto a square of pale blue glitter embedded card then that went onto the card base.

There wasn’t a great deal of decoupage to the card – just the flowers which I lightly shaped and added to the image using tiny sticky pads.

The finishing touches were glitter – the 3 butterflies were only stuck along the body so the wings were free, I used a quickie glue pen to highlight the veins and sprinkled with iridescent glitter, pale blue glitter was used in the centres of the ovals around the bottom and a slightly darker blue was used on the inside of the flowers.

Next card was also from www.craftsuprint.com but this time by Elaine Sheldrake.

It is a charming blue plate with a lovely summery look to the design.

I printed the single sheet, cut away the circular plate and stand and using Crafters Companion Stick & Stay I sprayed the back and secured them to strong white card and cut them out.

I used a mid blue pro marker to run around the plate and stand.

Because there was no decoupage apart from the ribbon I decided to gie the plate a WOW factor using glitters so it was light gold glitter on the thatched roof and the fence bordering it.

A lovely green glittered was used to outline the trees and then a silvery blue was used on the porch roofs

A bronze finished off the plate when it was added to the brown trees.

I printed a general verse and this was stuck to the back of the plate

I hope you like the 2 pale blue cards – and more so that the 2 lady’s I am posting these to like them!

I would like to wish everyone a very very Happy New Year

Stay safe and enjoy yourself

I for one hope 2015 will be a good year

So until the next card....

Bye for now

Hugs

xxx

Narcissus Collection

Hello again

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and were good all year so Santa visited and left you some yummy gifts.

We were invited to our daughters and had a great day despite me not been well at all...but I wouldn’t have missed seeing them for anything.

And so on to this set which includes card, bookmark and a box which I have made today ready to be swapped with a partner in a group I belong to.

I used an old Cupcake cd for the sheets, it’s called Bloomilicious and I used set 16

To make the card i folded a sheet of white A4 card in half to make an A5 card. I had printed off 2 sheets of backing paper so I chose the sheet with a small pattern and covered the front of the card folding about 2 cm round the spine and gluing into place. Next I cut out the pyramage pieces and built them into my topper with I them stuck to the top right of my card. I used a length of plain white 3mm satin ribbon and coloured it using a yellow pro marker, once it dried I tied into a small bow, left long lengths dangling and stuck to top left of the card with a sticky dot. 

Next I cut out the full page of teabag squares and folded and stuck them into a medallion, pushed a glittered star brad through then stuck the medallion onto the bottom left of the card and a small best Wished sentiment finished the card front.

For the inside I decided to use an insert which needed the centre cutting away, the insert was so badly faded, I printed it on different settings and different papers but nothing changed – I then decided to contact Cupcake to ask why it wasn’t printing correctly and was shocked to find that although Creative Crafting took over Cupcake they had nothing to do with Cupcake – I had thought they just decided to change the name but never mind, it looks ok now.

I trimmed down the other backing paper and folded in half and stuck into the centre of the card.

Next I folded the insert in half then folded into gatefold. I used double sided tape to stick in place.

I have a few teabag squares left so cut then down to 4.5 x4.5 cm, folded as the front medallion but this time I added a large ab clear gem to the centre and a length of he yellow ribbon was attached to the back and then into the top fold of the insert.

I used Picasa to add some text to the bookmark, on the reverse I added some info that I didn’t want to share hence the piece of patterned paper across it. I cut out the front and back and stuck to a piece of 300gsm card, rounded the corners then used the yellow promarker to colour the edges, punch a hole and added a length of thick chenille thread to it.

And finally the box = I printed it out then stuck the sheet to 300gsm white card then cut out all the pieces.

I scored the fold lines and added double sided tape to the tabs but didn’t remove the backing as this box will need to be flat to go in the post, the lid was cut out and corners scored and folded and like the box sides I added a piece of double sided tape to the corners

Once the box reaches my partner all she will need to do is peel off the backing paper and stick everything together.

I do hope you like this set as much as I do.

I know I say this over and again but I will be getting back into making things and sharing them on here

I hope some of you find the step by step instructions helpful and inspire you to have a go yourself!

So until the next time...

Love and Hugs

xxx

Village Christmas Card

Hi

Today’s card is another I have made for the Christmas Craft Day workshop, it’s not my own design as I saw this is a magazine and just loved it so did a variation of it.

I started by folding my white card into a landscape card (like a tent) then added a piece of checked paper leaving a narrow all round border.

This card is made up of matting and layering so the next mat was a piece of brownish embossed paper and then on top of that some lovely snowflake paper in shades of brown.

Doesn’t seem right making a Christmas card using mainly brown but I think it has worked well.

So back to the card....

I used a piece of quality very wide satin ribbon and placed it across the centre of the card securing it inside the card with sellotape.

Next I chose a lovely shaped die in 2 sizes and using the larger of the dies I cut a mat from double sided heavy coloured vellum. I used it brown side up as when I put the red on the brown mats it looked dreadful.

I used double sided tape to stick the brown mat in place – because adhesive tends to show through I placed the tape about 1cm in, that was then covered by the last mat.

Using a size smaller die I cut out one panel in white and another in pale blue

The white panel was then torn towards me to represent the rolling hills, I watered down some pva and painted the white with it then covered the panel with bright white glitter.

Next was the decorations needed for the main card, using Kraft card I die cut a village scene (this was a Marianne die and it is lovely)

I also die cut the fence which came with the village scene, and then using some dark green card I cut out 8 mini Christmas trees,

Making the card up was easy as I had the snowy panel to work with.

I glittered the roof’s of the houses and then glued the house panel to the card so I could work around the background,

The trees were highlighted with glitter then tucked behind the houses and a couple on the front,

The fence was simply added to look as though it was surrounding the houses.

So that was the main card sorted all I then needed to do was add a small deep green bow to the left side of the toppers and below the die cut panels I added a Christmas sentiment with a gold AB gem to each side of it.

Insert is in so that’s my card done for today

See you again soon

xx

Acetate Aperture

Hello

Yet again I am starting my blog with apologises – i know I said last time I wanted to get back into more regular posting on my blog – don’t know where the time goes, or my days feel as though they are crammed full so once again it the blog that suffers.

We are holding an all day Christmas workshop on Tuesday so I thought I would share the 2 cards I had to make, so will post one now and the other tomorrow (it’s now almost 2.30am on Monday and you will have guessed I am not sleeping too well again.

This card is based on one I made my hubby several years ago but I have scaled it down so it now fits into an A5 envelope.

So to start with i printed my decoupage sheet from Joanna Sheen’s Nostalgia CD, the decoupage was cut out and then I used mini sticky pads to build up the design,.

Making the card consisted on folding a sheet of white card in half to create the A5 blank.

Onto the white I stuck on a piece of dark blue card, next it was shiny silver

So far so good....

I used a sheet of acetate that was slightly wider than the main image, this was to allow for the image to be matted onto shiny silver and then the acetate to bow.

Using a fancy shaped Nestability and my Big Shot I found the centre of the acetate and cut out an aperture, not sure if it was thick acetate or wrong sandwich but I had to have a double shim for the acetate to eventually cut through...

Now I cut out a mat of blue printed paper which was slightly smaller than the shiny silver I used a few steps ago, using the super sticky red tape, I stuck the acetate across the left side (short side) and left that to one side again

Back to the image, I matted this onto shiny silver mirri card leaving a wide border all around; now this was stuck onto the blue backing paper. Once this was all in place I stuck it down but for now I left the short sides unstuck, this was so I could position the acetate and get it stuck in place.

When I was happy the acetate was all lined up and straight I peeled away the backing from the red tape and pressed securely

The bow of my acetate makes it stand proud by around 2cms – this is a matter of taste, it could be 0.5cms through to around 3cms, just bear in mind that the higher the acetate stands the deeper the box you will have to make for it.

To finish off the card I lightly glittered the snowy scene, the roof tops had a thicker covering as did the taller of the trees.

The acetate can be left clear but I decided to add some peel offs that I have had in my bits box....so a couple of small silver trees then lots of small silver stars and snowflakes.

Last thing was to stick the sentiment on the top of the acetate; it’s not really a sentiment it’s the first few lines of Silent Night

So there we have a lovely and unusual Christmas card – it could be used a special card or just an every day one.

And now for something new.... you have the opportunity to buy the kit so you can create the card in your on time or you can buy the card already made up. You can pay through PayPal or bank transfer. For more information please email me

angmacw@googlmail.com

See you next time

xxx