Card for a gardener

I made this today for a friend who is a keen gardener.....I think it will amuse him, even though there probably isn't a weed to be seen in his vegetable plot! I took the verse from a cross stitch book by Jo Verso, printed it from the computer and cut it with a Classic Rectangle Nestability, then mounted it on brown card cut with the Scallopped Nestie. The stamps are from several different companies. Inside, opposite the sentiment, I stamped 'May all your weeds be wild flowers'.

I'm back to my campaign for using up scraps - the cream and light brown both came from my scrap box.

Thank you Kathy!

Kathy and her dog Lucky have very kindly given me a 'Versatile Blogger' award, which I accept with gratitude. She is one of the great encouragers in Blogworld and I would like to think that I can pass on the award to others with the same grace as Kathy.

Now, one of the conditions of accepting the award is to tell you 7 things about myself. No indication as to what sort of things so here is a random selection....

1. I have an older sister who is my best friend and truly my 'Other Half' (no reflection on DH)
2. I sang with an amateur operatic society for 12 years: only back row of the chorus stuff, but I loved it
3. I published an anthology of quotations about lacemaking which sold 1000 copies worldwide
4. I have written 70 English folk dances and published them in 3 books
5. I met my DH when I started work in the public library aged 16 and we've been married for 42 years. He was my first and only boyfriend
6. I love doing 'Extreme' (very difficult) Sudoku problems
7. In 2000 I travelled from England to California for a long weekend at a stitching festival to meet my favourite cross stitch designer, Teresa Wentzler. We 'clicked' and she became a very dear friend

Whew! That was hard. Now to pass the award to 8 other bloggers whose work inspires me by their creativity. Ladies, please grab the Versatile Blogger logo and display it on your own blog.

Liz
Monica
Elizabeth

Jackie
Rebekka
Shaz
Ann
Max

Bah! Humbug! Challenge #11

Gold....Silver....Copper....sounds like the Olympic medals gone wrong! But this week's Challenge theme of metallics certainly has plenty of scope, and if you think of those car colours available as an optional extra in metallic finish (at vast extra expense, of course) you can see we're not restricted to the precious metals. On the highest step of my rostrum is this Christmas star stitched in gold metallic thread, edged with a thin gold border and mounted on dark blue velvet paper. Stitching pattern from Form-A-Lines, the sentiment is by JustRite Stampers cut with Nestability dies and has a scalloped border of the same gold.


Silver and white says snowflakes to me (yes, I have very selective hearing...). The big one is a stamp by Personal Impressions embossed with silver EP and mounted on matt silver. Two embossed panels have snowflakes by Crafts Too and Papermania, and the card is 6 inches square.


The partridge in a pear tree is made with a Dreamweaver stencil and matt black paste on copper coloured card, then mounted on green velvet paper. I even had a sheet of copper coloured greetings to embellish it!


The three kings stamp by Hobby Art is embossed in gold and painted with Twinkling H2Os - those non-precious car colours - which have a pearlescent finish rather than 'twinkling' in the way that Glimmer Mists or Cosmic Shimmers do. I cut the shape with Nesties Label #8, framed it with a patterned gold card and mounted it on green mirri card.

I didn't even use the buttons, charms, wire, eyelets and brads all with metallic finish that I'd unearthed before I started!

Spring is sprung

Another quick birthday card which cheered a very dismal day here. The lovely daffodil stamp is from a recent JustRite Stampers set, coloured with Promarkers and cut with a Nestabilities Classic Oval then mounted on the Beaded Oval. Background is embossed with Swiss Dots and the sentiment is cut with Fancy Labels. Green background paper is from my stash.

I have just discovered the monthly challenges on the Sir Stampalot blog . Since the theme for this month is 'Spring is in the Air' this fits the bill nicely, so here's my first entry.

A birthday card at last

For the past two weeks I have been so busy making Christmas cards for the Bah! Humbug! challenges (including 4 cards for next Friday as I shall be away from Monday to Friday lunchtime) that I've not thought about the birthday cards needed for this month. What with preparing cards at least a week before the themes are announced, and sending the scans to the Bosses at Humbug Hall, and writing the relevant blog entries at the same time so I remember what I've done, and remembering to save them in draft form...well, I hardly know which way is up nor what the date is! And on top of all that I had a hefty programme of country dances to prepare for the workshops I shall be teaching next week when we make our annual pilgrimage to Halsway Manor  in Somerset. Not, I hasten to add, that I'm complaining! It's my first experience of being a Guest Designer for anything and I'm relishing every single moment (maybe going a wee bit OTT with the number of projects I'm producing), and I love teaching dances and staying at the Manor so Life is good even though it's busy.

Mary, the organiser of the dance week, will be celebrating her 98th birthday the following week and today I made this card for her. The basket is made with iris folding in a pale green card which was then mounted onto pearlescent mauve. The flowers were punched and double mounted in various shades of pink and mauve, and a gold sentiment completed the job. Now, I only have to do two more cards over the weekend....

Bah! Humbug! Challenge #10

The theme for this week's Challenge is 'Apertures' which seems a perfect occasion to use a pair of stamps I bought at a big craft show in Toronto, Canada, about four years ago and, I'm ashamed to say, have inked only once to stamp them in my catalogue. The resulting card was much quicker and easier to make than I feared. The snowy village scene was stamped straight onto a white card blank and coloured with dry watercolour pencils. The windows were stamped on a piece of green card the same size, cut out and a sheet of acetate stuck on the back. One of the bottom corners was a bit ragged so I applied a little Polar White Flowersoft on the acetate to be snow on the window sills - I don't know how I would have disguised ragged corners at the top but I was lucky! I then cut a strip of card 4cm wide and scored 3 vertical lines, accordian folded them and cut the strip in half. I stuck a piece to each side of the front, attached them to the snow scene and there you are: a view through the windows! A silver peel off border and greeting completed the front....and I wondered why it had taken me so long to use those stamps. Although they are by a Canadian company and may not be readily available in the UK it would be easy enough to cut similar windows freehand to go with any scenic background. The folded strips between the front panel and the scene mean that the card will squash flat to go in an envelope, but when extracted the windows stand proud like the proscenium arch on a stage.

When buying peel offs you may have seen big white sheets of geometric shapes and wondered what they are for. This card was made by punching three square apertures and sticking matching peel off frames with clear centres on the front (I use waxed paper such as the carrier sheet from labels inside the card to protect the back surface). Inside I sprinkled ultrafine holographic glitter on the sticky surface of the centres; on the outside I added small peel off motifs and coloured with appropriate pens. I stuck the edges of the insert sheet all round on the lefthand side so the glitter wouldn't rub off.

It's many years since I used this wreath stamp by PSX and having made the card I remembered why! Nothing wrong with the stamp, it's all that cutting..... I stamped it on white card with Versamark, embossed with silver EP, coloured it with Promarkers and cut it out (memo to Self: new decoupage snips are needed urgently!) The card was covered with green paper embossed with the Cuttlebug folder 'Holly Ribbons', the aperture cut with a Nestabilities Classic Circle die and the wreath stuck down overlapping the edge. The sentiment was stamped on the inside - I traced lightly the inner edge of the wreath to position it properly - and the only minor problem is that the back of the leaves show on the inside of the aperture and, because the Promarkers bleed through, it looks a bit untidy. If I make another I shall cut the wreath out double and then stick the clean copy on the back after colouring and before assembly.

Bah! Humbug! Challenge #9

Embossing: a technique to make a design stand out from the surface

I'm very excited to be making my Challenge cards this week as a member of the Design Team (thank you, Ann and Max). I tried to think of something a bit different without being too way out and hope that, if necessary, you will find my work gives you ideas for your own cards.

Having been a stamper for about 20 years my first thought when I read 'Embossing' involved powders and a heat gun! I made two complimentary panels using a very old, traditional wood mounted stamp by PSX, and a fairly new, clear unmounted one by Dimension Fourth, each stamped with Versamark and embossed with silver EP. They were too big for my original card idea so I made a Z fold card which embraces both and an insert, yet still fits into a standard C6 envelope. The sentiment is by Funstamps and was stamped in Brilliance ink; snowflake border punch by Fiskars.

Next is a 'crossover technique' card (aka, what do you mean by embossing?); the ornament is another PSX stamp embossed with Red Razzle Dazzle EP, cut out and mounted on a panel made with a Cuttlebug embossing folder from the 'Holiday' set.

Third card design goes way, way back. I once bought some ready made blanks printed with a grid of different size boxes into which you could stamp various images: very useful for incorporating those little stamps which often seem too small to have any use. I used to copy the idea and painstakingly draw out my own grids with ruler, pen and a few curses, but now the job is made so much easier with a score board! It's best to choose the images and plan your grid to fit them on paper first. Oh, and I had to cheat: thin embossed lines do not show up when scanned, so for illustration purposes only I went over them with ruler and pencil!

The red and gold card looks impressive (I hope) but was the quickest of the four to make, using a Dreamweaver stencil and gold embossing paste. It really couldn't be easier: tape stencil over card, apply paste, remove stencil and leave card to dry! For the background I used self adhesive red velvet paper on top of thin card, and stuck the finished panel to an A6 card - I did try layering it onto a 7" x 5" but decided the simple approach was the best. If you would like to try this technique I can recommend a DVD by Carol Cockbain of The Craft Barn, or watch a demonstration by (another) Carol from The Craft Station if you catch her at a show (please note, I have no affiliation with either shop).

Now, what am I going to do for next week's Challenge???