Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Sunday, and Happy Mother's Day!  I thought I'd show you the card I've made for my mum, using the Pomegranate Bits from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.

There are two masks in the pack, and all I did was ink them with Distress Ink Minis, spritz lightly with water, then lay each one down onto white card, pressing with kitchen towel to ensure full contact and to make sure the inks blend.

You can get a bit of splatter/leakage as you lay the mask onto your card, but that suits me, because I add more splatter anyway!

When you remove the mask, there is still sufficient ink left on it for another quick spritz and a softer image.  You can also use either side of a mask, which helps to give a bit of variety to your composition.

To finish off my card, I defined the edges of the images by very quickly and loosely scribbling around the edges with a fine tipped black pen.  I created a matching sentiment by watercolouring the same Distress Inks onto white card, then die-cutting the Hero Arts Happy Stamp & Cut, and stamping the rest of the sentiment, then mounted the whole panel onto yellow card.

That's it from me today - enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Shirley x

Happy Anniversary

Happy weekend, folks!  Shirley here with a slightly grungy anniversary card for you.  February being the month of love, we're seeing plenty of hearts, pinks, reds - but rather than a valentine's card, I thought I'd make an anniversary card.

I started by colouring a piece of mixed media card with Barn Door Distress Paint.  Once that had dried, I applied Brushed Pewter Distress Paint to some bubble wrap and used it as a stamp onto the panel.  I used the Lawn Fawn Lawn Cuts Small Stitched Rectangles to trim the panel.

The 'happy' (diecut from glitter foam) and 'anniversary' are from the Hero Arts Happy Stamp & Cut set.

The red Distress Paint hadn't covered fully, leaving some of the paper texture showing, but I think that adds to the grunginess :)

The heart is made from Tim Holtz Grungepaper which had been sponged with Fired Brick Distress Ink then embossed to give it texture, and heat-set with clear embossing powder.  I attached it to the red panel with a heart-shaped brad which I found in my stash.

On a tent-fold white card, I 'painted' some Brushed Pewter marks with a credit card, added some more marks to the red panel, then adhered the panel to the card.

I hope I've given you some ideas for Valentine's or anniversary cards.  See you soon!

Shirley

12 Designers of Christmas -Designer # 2 Vicki Abrathat

hello there! 

This is a rare sight from me....  making my own Christmas cards, 

but with some many fabulous products in the shop

 it was difficult not to do some for close friends and family.

Keeping it simple and clean is the way forward for me.  

I have utterly fallen in love with these 

stitched snowflake dies from Lawn Fawn .    

The cards and the die cuts have all been made from my absolute favourite 

Bazzill Card Shoppe cardstock in Marshmallow. 

Its a really nice warm white and cuts beautifully. 

Merry & Joy (as shown below) are Hero Arts dies from their Stamp & Cut range, so you can add additional messages to your cards if you want to.  

To create the raised effect I have adhered 4 dies cuts together using Claudine Hellmuth matte multi medium. I keep a stash of the small bottles in my drawer.   I find this the best "glue" to do this. If there is any spillage I run round the edge a QuickStick Tool - it comes with a fab pointy-stick-thing 

(I know...very technical!) 

The raised panels are Lawn Fawn Stitch Squares, the tops ones are back with regular craft foam so they don't get squashed in the mail. 

I also have a bunch of snowflakes left over... they may well become table confetti.  

 By leaving a comment on all twelve of the designer blogs you could win yourself a fabulous prize of a mixed media kit so you don't want to miss out.

lawn fawn..

hello, 

Its been a long time since I have done anything creative... don't get too excited just yet though.   Its rare I get chance, but last week we had part two of our Lawn Fawn delivery...and yes.... I pinched stuff. 

As I don't often get time, or the inclination to scrapbook on a 12x12 scale, I prefer to use pocket scrapbooking and have found since doing that I stamp more.  Good for the stamp mountain I own...  

One of the product I have so far liberated from the Lawn Fawn delivery is these round grip acrylic blocks.  They do have a grid, and that is what I love about my Tim Holtz set of acrylic blocks, but these are so much easier to grip making they way more comfortable.   I will still use my tim blocks for larger stamps, but the Lawn Fawn ones are now on my scrapbook trolly!

(the stamp is by Ali Edwards, not available to retailers)

Other products that, I personally have been lusting after, but not yet liberated from the store, are Lawn Cuts. Lawn Fawns dies...  we have the stitched stackables in store and some new scripty dies!

I so wanna go and play!