Sizzling

Due to all the hot weather we have had recently here in the UK, I set "Sizzling" as the theme for this month's SWAP.

I'm still into making 3D box cards, hoping I'll be able to send one to each member of my craft group as the year plays out.

I interpreted the theme via colour as in "Red Hot".

I think I was a little influenced by the Summer of Colour's week 4 colour mix of two reds and a metallic.

Freebie - Art Journalling

Yep - succumbed to the old freebie on a magazine yet again.

Papercraft Essentials have a stencil and stamp set this month.

Thought I'd try and see if the stamp of the dandelion stem would straighten up and make like the Allium I have in the garden.

I got out my journal which has been gathering dust since February. I'd last done the calendar pages for February and then nothing. I guess I was a bit disappointed about how the stamping had shown through to the other side of the page but who knows.

Anyway I went ahead and stamped the blooms and inked and coloured and it came out OK. There was still the matter of the facing page with the ink showing through, so I covered this with a book page and couldn't help myself but ink and stamp on that as well.

Nice to be back journalling but how long will this last?

Oh and the last couple of owl/icecream cards from craft club last month made up at last.

Easter Boxes

With my new found love of little 3D boxes, I made a couple for Easter.

The orange one reflects the dark day of Good Friday.

The turquoise one the joy of Easter Day

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Box Cards

Actually made it to Craft Club this month, first time this year.

They were doing pop-up box cards and it was my first time making one of these fun little boxes.

Here's a blog tutorial I found since explaining Box Cards, if you want to make one too.

We used A5 card which makes a neat little box which fits into a C6 envelope. My first one was in a floral Spring like theme.




I made another one today for my son who plays the drums just to show you can do any theme whatsoever with the basic template.

Poinsettia

I used my poinsettia die for my last craft club this year, then I just had to give it a go with a non Christmas colour and created a sunflower!

Ashtead Challenge

The Ashtead Card Making and Craft Club year long challenge is coming to an end this week.

Did I have the minimum of 10 A4 pages completed?
Simple Answer NO!

So I finished up my day yesterday getting inky fingers creating.

A page to the Seasons
A page using the initial of my surname. And a page of a never ending line.

Here's the cover of my Challenge folder too. I used various items I have made/used throughout the year.

Papercrafting At Last

OK so my initial reason was to prep for my craft club tomorrow, but all the same, I spent a very happy day crafting (and not a crochet hook in sight!)

I made up kits for the ladies to make 3 Christmas cards on the theme of Baubles.

I got my inspiration from "Simply Cards and Papercraft" magazine, plus their freebie Bauble Die.

As I went along my cards deviated from the inspiration card somewhat.

Mine are on the left by the way.

Roudolf Day

On UKPapercrafters we have a Roudolf Day where the aim is to make some Christmas cards on 25th of each month so Christmas isn't so much of a chore when it comes around!

I have made a few Christmas cards this month.

The first 3 I made up using the peg stamping I did at my last craft club at my house at the beginning of the month.

The second 3 I made a Ashtead Craft Club last night. The theme was to make stamps so I made a couple of Christmas trees from rubber erasers.

So there we go, 6 cards for Roudolf Day - horrah!

Craft Club - Hot Hot Hot

The current challenge at Ashtead Craft Club in Hot Hot Hot. Well it was hot when it was set in July!

Anyway there were 3 types of hot things to do this month to help with the challenge. Friendly Plastic, Shrink Plastic and Melt Pot. I opted for the latter as I don't actually have one of my own and had only tried it once at club before.







We were dipping shapes in clear UTEE,and I got in a right pickle! With intricate shapes the spaces get filled with the UTEE so to alleviate this you need to further heat with a heat tool hoping it would drip off.

Lets just say I managed a few pieces and further tried to refine them at home with my heat tool. My pieces are OK and I have made up various projects with them but I am not running out to buy a Melt Pot.

So what did I do? 9 butterflies, 3 flowers and 3 leaves. I made up 3 cards, my A4 challenge piece called "Butterfly Fest", and I also added a few of the items to the cover of my Challenge Folder.

Craft Club - Iris Folding

One of the members who comes along to my craft club brought some samples he'd done of Iris Folding, also another member left her book by mistake.

Thought it would be rude of me not to make up the card I really liked especially as it happened to be in the book which was left behind too.

So here are the Champagne Glasses.

I liked it so much I made a second too. Well I did have the papers out to hand. I used wrapping paper, Christmas hat papers and an old envelope. Can't be bad.

WOYWW #271 - Made Cards!

As I've actually done some crafting and it is Wednesday, thought I'd join in with WOYWW this week - shock horror - whatever next!?

Anyway, I had craft club at my house this Monday and we tackled some Iris Folding. I finished off my circle demo card today and thought I'd do a heart one before putting the last of the stuff away from Monday.

I really like the way the heart one came out too.

Then, as I have been sorting through my stash and came across some photos of flowers, I thought I'd do a couple of pages in my little CD flower album.

Of course I then had to do my SWAP card for my online group on the theme of Nature. You can only see a glimpse of it as I haven't sent it yet but I sort of got carried away after filing through my bits and bobs box...

So yes I have actually done some crafting so I hope my desk doesn't disappoint.

Craft Club - "Split Negative" Mica Technique

At Craft Club last week there were 2 demonstrations on offer, Powders and Pastels.

One was using Pan Pastels, something I have been meaning to try, but don't own so there wouldn't be any chance of me repeating the techniques at home at present.

The other was using mica powders (which I do have) and the "split negative" technique really intrigued me so I plumped for this one.


Firstly you stamp a block with Versamark or Perfect Medium. Our blocks were made using pieces of diecut foam.Then you gently dust your mica powder onto this block image.




Next you ink up a stamp, which ideally overlaps the block shape, also with Versamark or Perfect Medium. You stamp this image on top of the mica block. The ink should remove the mica from the block shape.

Then you carefully dust mica on the overlapping parts of the stamped image. Some of my attempts aren't quite careful enough or the stamp I used wasn't appropriate, but a few were OK.

There was a comment about my candles being for Christmas cards so I had to oblige. Fortunately I found the Christmas paper at club and I added some red glitter glue and the greetings when I got home when I got home.

I salvaged the Sunflower image by drawing over the innerparts with a white pen as they didn't show up enough before.

Cool technique.

Alcohol Inks Revisited

As a lot of my alcohol ink play had just been put in my bits and bobs tin, including the landscapes I did this week, I decided to fish it all out and make up some cards.

Of course I had to sort out my bits and bobs tin in the process and chucked out lots of scraps - liberating!



Anyway, I got to work and did some stamping on the landscape pieces using archival ink. I also added sentiments to a few of the cards I had already made.

I made up the mosaic/seahorse from scraps.

I also got my alcohol inks out to make an A4 piece for my Club Challenge. I used my Tim Holtz Distress Marker Spritzer to blow out the drops of alcohol ink, doodled with black pen and added micro beads to the centres of the Dahlias, plus some liquid pearls. Don't those pesky micro beads get everywhere!

Lastly, not exactly alcohol inks, but one photo paper print of Dylusions from shaving foam which was in my tin, so I stamped the Indigo Blu lady and made that up into a card as well.

Also the poppy silhouette I had made at club last year, finally now a card too.

Funny what you end up making when you don't intend to.