Orchids and a Fuchsia

I have no card to show today - instead I spent a very rewarding and relaxing day at The Glitter Pot making flowers with Jane Gill and a lovely, fun group of ladies. It was a class on Orchids and Fuchsias, and an extra little flower as a bonus for being good! So here they are (click on the picture for a closer look) -

No Tools Flower Challenge Winner

Well . . . . after hours spent folding the entries - all seven of them! - Amy and I did the drawing today.



And the winner is . . . . .





Congratulations Wendy! Please leave a comment on this post so that I can email you for your address.

No Tools Lily

This lily, including the leaves, was made using the no tools method. I coloured the petals and leaves with Whispers watercolour markers, using a photo of a lily as a guide. The ends of the stamens have flocking on them.
The backing uses Bazzill card, with the ovals cut using Nestability dies, and the embossing done with a Cuttlebug and the Textile folder. It's ridiculous how long it took me to tie the bow and get something I was prepared to put on a card - now I remember why I don't normally do them!

No Tools Flower Challenge

EDIT NOTE: I moved this to stay at the top until the challenge is finished in the hopes that I can persuade some people to have a go!

Yesterday (15th May) I said that there would be a challenge today. So I'm back with the details.

My no tools flower tutorial seems to have generated a bit of interest - and I really would love to see what people make from my tutorial. So my challenge is for you to create a flower using the tutorial and then post a picture of it either by itself or on a card, scrapbook page etc. After that leave a comment on this post with a link to your picture. If you don't have a blog, then email me a picture and I will add it to this challenge post.

To give folks time to have a go, I will leave the challenge running for two weeks, and make a drawing on Friday 30th May at 11am GMT. Up for grabs is a Character Shaping Tool and a foam mat to use it on. The photo shows mine, but obviously I will send you new ones! I will post internationally.

Be Inspired #15 Card

Beate's Be Inspired Challenge this week was a challenge indeed! There is nothing about the dress that I like, and on my first look I gave up. But then I decided not to wimp out, and went back for a second go.
My first step was to see what card I had that matched the colours - does anyone else sit in front of the computer holding pieces of card up to the monitor? Anyway - I don't have anything approaching the grey in the dress, but did find a piece of bluey/grey that is very similar to one of the dress colours. Then I took the picture into Photoshop so that I could enlarge it and see more of the detail of the main circular design - which is flower-like!
As I don't have any stamps that would fit in with the look, I fished through my punches to see what I had to mimic the overall feel of it. I have one punch that broke recently - a bit of the cutting part snapped off. So it punches a swirl with a fat end. Worked out just fine for my 'flower' medallion! I punched out 12 white swirls and stuck them to a punched sun shape. Then added 12 brown swirls around the outside of that. The centre is made with a larger sun shape punched out of the blue/grey card, with 12 little brown 1/8" spots stuck on the tips. Finished with a 1/2" circle in the middle, and then mounted the whole thing on a green Nestability scalloped circle.
The card base is white linen textured card, and measures 15x10.5cm (4x6" approx). The blue/grey panel on the card is cuttlebugged with Divine Swirls and matted onto brown Bazzill Basics card. The background is Bazzill Bling Sunset. Pebbles Inc Rub-On greeting on a white linen card strip rounded with my corner rounder punch. Brads to finish.

Paper Pieced Flower

The image on this card is done using the paper piecing method as per Beate's Back to Basics tutorial on Splitcoaststampers. The stamp is an old one (ten years+) that I haven't used before. I found it recently on a sort through of an old box of crafting things. I really like the design of the stamp, but it's a swine to use! Needs just the right pressure otherwise you either get an incomplete image or ink where you don't want it. It is a Pergamano stamp PS-6.
I stamped the image first on the white linen textured card, and then the relevant parts of it on the patterned papers. I used black pigment ink, and then embossed with clear embossing powder. Cut out and glued the coloured paper pieces onto the image. Trimmed the image piece square using a Nestability die, and then cut another scalloped square out of the same white card to mount it on. Drew a black line around the plain square with a marker.
The strips of patterned paper were pleated and pinched in, with the pleats held together with a spot of glue. Wrapped around the edges of the pink Bazzill card to mimic ribbons. The Happy Birthday is a Pebbles Inc rub-on.

Little Pot of Violets

This little pot of violets was made using Woodware Leone Em punches. (Country Basket and Iris & Violet Combination.) The flowers and leaves were punched out of white printer paper, and coloured front and back with Whisper watercolour markers. Still need to work on my technique for colouring the violet centres. Once the leaves and flowers were dried and shaped, I stuck them on narrow strips of green paper before arranging and fixing to the back of the pot. The pot was already shaded with grey chalk, and shaped.
I used foam tape behind the pot to fix it to the backing paper, which is by Papermania and called Regal. Matted on to dark green Bazzill. The lilac card is also Bazzill. Finished with cream organza ribbon and Papermania pearl centred brads. I don't have a corner punch for the shape taken out of the patterned paper corners - called ticket punch? - so I used a 1/2" circle punch instead. The card is A6 size (15x10.5cm or very approx. 4x6").

Doodles Sun Flower

The flower on this card is made from eight 4cm x 5cm pieces of a burgundy/red handmade paper. They are folded using Christian's Two For One Fold. I punched little suns out of a yellow version of the same paper, and inserted them in the openings of the inner squash folds. A slightly larger sun for the centre, finished with a flat backed pearl which I coloured with a green permanent marker.

The stalk is a stamp by Tracey Miller from a set called Doodles.

I inked the stamp with a water colour marker, and used an aqua brush to wash some of the colour over the leaves. Two little orange gems in the curls. Finished off with a ribbon, and doodled lines around the edge. Matted onto the same red and yellow handmade paper as used for the flower.

Polka Dot Flower

Trying something a bit different today - nice and bright to counteract the dull, wet bank holiday weather. Maybe a bit too bright!LOL! I used my no tools method to create the main part of the flower from Doodlebug Lilac Swiss Dot paper, and a couple of snowflake punches and a single hole punch for the stamens using orange paper. Freehand cut the leaves and stem from Bazzill Bling Emerald. Cuttlebugged the orange Bazzill Basics card with the Swiss Dots folder, and hand doodling on the Magenta Purple Gingham paper. Three purple buttons to finish. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, but purple always comes out more blue in my pictures. The buttons are a much closer colour match to the flower 'in the flesh'.

Here's how I made the flower:

You may like to refer to these entries if you haven't seen them before -
No Tools Flower and Tool Substitutes
As usual - click on any picture for a larger view.

Cut out 6 fat petal shapes from the Lilac Swiss Dot paper.

Curl with the character shaper tool from the pointed end to the middle on the right side.

Flip the petal over and curl from the fat end to the middle on the wrong side.

This is the side view of the shaped petal when finished. I am holding it by the pointed end. This is also the way that I shaped the two leaves on the finished card.

Punch out two small snowflakes. (I know - the eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted that my shapes are a six petaled flower, but I did them before deciding to use a snowflake for the stamens. It doesn't really matter - six arms is what you're after.) Stick three shaped petals to each as shown. Then glue one assembly on top of the other, alternating the petals. I forgot to photograph this next stage - but after you have glued the two layers together, you need to go around the flower and adjust the petals so that the left side of each petal sits on top of the next one round. You can see what I mean in the finished flower picture at the end.

Punch out two different sized snowflakes and six 1/4" circles - I used a single hole punch of the kind you can buy at a stationers. My small snowflake is an EK success one, and the other is an X-Cut punch.

Stick the six little circles to the tips of the smaller snowflake as shown.

Emboss the circles with a circular movement to curve them up in a saucer shape.

Draw an imaginary circle around the base of the snowflake spokes with the embossing tool to make them all cup upwards.

Glue this cupped shape on top of the larger snowflake, alternating the spokes, and making sure that it is nicely centred.

Glue the stamen assembly into the centre of the flower.

Weekend Sketch Challenge #49

This is my version of Beate's sketch for this weekend's challenge.

The flower is made from linen textured cream card. I used one of my No Tools flower petal shapes as a template, and drew round it on the back of the card as I couldn't fold it to cut them out. Still didn't take too long to do. I left the cream card plain, and just shaped it before sticking the petals on to a snowflake. The centre is a 1" Woodware Blink Blink punch, and a mini Woodware punch which they just call Flower. The leaves were punched with a Leone Em (Woodware) Evergreen Punch. The two plain colours of card used in the backing are Bazzill, and the gorgeous patterned paper is K & Co Smitten Paisley Glittered Paper. Click on the picture above to enlarge it so that you can see the detail and the glitter better.

Two Ways with Funky Pink Hearts

I have used my regular tools for this tutorial. For alternatives see my post on Tool Substitutes.
This flower uses a long heart shape. The punch I used is by X-cut and is called Funky Heart. Woodware do a similar one, EK success also has one called Folk Heart, and I am sure there must be others. You also need something to stick the hearts to. I have used a snowflake punched with an EK Success punch. Any small snowflake shape will do, or a six petaled flower shape. If you don't have either of those, then use a circle as per the No Tools Flower instructions.

Here are the supplies needed:

• Shaping mat
• Scrap of coloured paper
• Pva glue
• Funky Heart punch
• Snowflake punch
• Ink pad
• Embossing ball tool
• Character shaping tool
• Flat backed pearl or other embellishment for the centre

Punch out 12 hearts and two snowflakes.

Swipe the ink pad around the edges of the petals. (This looks nicer than the photo shows!)

Use the character tool (or teaspoon etc - see tool substitutes) as shown in the No Tools Flower tutorial.

The petal will curl up like this.

Glue two petals opposite each other with the tips touching in the centre of the snowflake. Like a strange little bug! Only use a tiny spot of glue on the very tip of the heart.

Continue sticking petals around the snowflake, spacing them evenly for best effect. On the second snowflake, stick the petals slightly further out as shown on the left hand layer in this photo. (Click to see closer.)

Place each layer in turn, right way up on the shaping mat. Using the character tool, draw an imaginary circle around the base of the petals, applying a little pressure as you do so. This will make the flower cup upwards.

Apply a spot of glue in the centre of the layer with the more widely spaced petals, and fix the other layer on top. Align the layers so that the petals of the top one are between those of the bottom layer.

Glue the pearl in the centre to finish.

By doing a different shaping you can get a totally different look. After punching out the shapes, do not curve them, but just stick them to the snowflake. Then turn the assembly upside down on the shaping mat and use the embossing ball tool to shape as per the Nestability Flowers.

Emboss the tips.

Emboss a line down the centre of each petal.

Turn the whole thing back over to the right side, and 'draw circles' around the base of the petals to pop them up.

Stick the two layers together, and then, with the flower on the shaping mat, press with the embossing tool in the centre to 'fluff' the petals up.

Add the pearl.


Two very different looks.

This flower was done with the second method, but using a crinkly thin tissue type paper. I used a Leone Em Stamens punch with Emerald Bazzill Bling for the centre.

Fred She Said Daffodils

This is a 3d design by Tracey Miller. For every download purchased in May she will donate over half the cost to the Canadian Cancer Society. Check her blog Fred She Said for details. This card is for a local charity shop, along with a few others I will be making up.
I printed it onto a linen textured card stock, cut, and assembled with 2mm foam tape/pads. It is easy cutting, and makes up really quickly. I love Tracey's designs - always such bright, clear colours that print out well, and beautifully drawn.

Double Pocket Bag

This is my version of the double pocket bag for the Splitcoaststampers TLC169.
I used one sheet of 12"x12" double sided paper by Crate Paper called Bubblegum. It's quite stiff, so has made a nice sturdy bag that stands up well. I made the first folds so that the reverse of the paper would show along the top of the bag.
I made a 'ribbon' strip to go around the top by cutting strips of Bazzill Bling Emerald and sticking them to white printer paper. Then I trimmed the paper with scalloped scissors along the edge of the Bazzill. I used two more strips to make the handles. Initially because I didn't have the right ribbon, but then decided that I liked it better anyway - easier to attach, and ties in nicely with the fake ribbon strip.
Another no tools flower - with printer paper again - same petal shape as my Be Inspired card, without the tip curled over, and coloured at the edges by swiping after shaping with a Color Box Chalk pad - Orchid Pastel. The centre was punched out of the printer paper with my Woodware Bling Bling punch, and coloured by stamping with the Color Box pad. The green centre is the smallest Woodware Christmas Flower punched from the green Bazzill. Leaves cut freehand with scissors.

Be Inspired Challenge #14

This is my take on Beate's inspiration piece. The card is all Bazzill Bling - Sunset, 24 Karat, and Emerald City. I cut the Sunset curved shapes freehand with scissors, and then sponged both the shapes and the 24 Karat rectangle with ink from Ancient Page pads Sienna and Sunburst. The Sunset is layered onto the 24 Karat, and then both matted onto Emerald City.
The little flowers were punched out of printer paper with a Woodware punch - Multi-Christmas Flower, and the yellow centres drawn in with a marker. The green wavy 'stalk' and the main flower stem and leaves were cut from the green card freehand with scissors.
I used the no tools flower method to cut and shape the petals on the main flower - which was also made from printer paper. The black stamens were punched with a Woodware Blink Blink punch, and the yellow centre is made from the same two flowers as the little white ones.

Sort of a Poppy!

I made this flower using the No Tools method, and changed the shape of the petal to a kind of fat heart shape, but without the dip in the top. I made the outer edges frilly by using some fancy edging scissors, and just nipping tiny bits out of the paper with the very tips of the deckle points. I only made one layer of petals, but put every other one on top to make it look like two layers of three.
The bud is made from one petal which has been rolled into a bud shape, and had the pointy end snipped off. For the green on the bud, I used an X-cut Funky Heart shape cut in two, with a little tiny three tipped tulip shape for the part where it joins the stem. The stems are just strips cut from the paper with scissors. I scored a line down the centre to give a little bit of dimension. The leaves are a Leone Em (Woodware) punch called Ash Branch.
Simply mounted on cream linen finish card, which has had the edges lightly distressed and chalked in green (doesn't show too well in the photo. Used a Woodware corner punch called Squared Corner Cutter. Matted onto the same green paper used for the leaves and stems. Cream linen card base. Woodware Tiny Phrases for the greeting.

Little Hearts and Flowers Card

Change of pace for this card today - dainty and pastel - using some digital backing papers designed by Carol. I used Photoshop to size the purple hearts paper to fit my card, and digitally matted it onto the green backing paper. I then created a copy of the matted backing, and reduced it in size to make the topper. Fixed the ribbon to the backing paper, and then glued the backing to the card base. The topper is fixed with 2mm foam tape to give a bit of dimension. The flowers are punched out of a purple square that I printed by picking the colour off the hearts, and the flower centres are punched from the green backing paper design. The flowers were shaped slightly with an embossing ball tool. Little clear gems to finish.

A Note About Tools and Substitutes

I am hoping to do more flower making tutorials, and thought that I would start by showing you the tools that I use to make them, and things that you can use to substitute for them.

So let me introduce you to my flower making tools - click on the picture for a larger view. Apart from punches this is pretty much it. From left to right they are:

• DEET tool
• Embossing ball tool
• Scissors
• Character shaping tool
• Angled tweezers

and on the bottom - the foam pad.
The moulding mat, deet tool, embossing ball tool and character shaping tool are all Leone Em products. Obviously there are many other types of embossing ball tools, and I do sometimes use others, but this one in conjunction with the rounded end of the character shaper is the size I find most useful for flower making.

Of the things that I have tried as a substitute for the foam mat, I found that two or three layers of fun foam stuck together, or a spongy rubber mouse mat work the closest.

Here are some ideas for substitutes for the the other Leone Em tools:


For the needle end of the deet tool, a darning needle or very large pin such as a hat pin. The substitutes will work as well, but are more difficult to manipulate without a handle. The other end of the deet tool is not used specifically for any shaping, but more as an extra, smaller finger for manipulating or steadying fiddly work. It's not used very much, and before I had it I didn't miss it! An extra pair of tweezers, long fingernail etc would suffice.



For the embossing ball tool, and the rounded end of the character tool, use anything smooth and rounded. The kind of pencil that has a painted over rounded end works well, as does the cap end of this gel pen, and for smaller impressions the end of this paint brush works pretty well.


For the other end of the character tool I have tried out all of the above items, and they all work pretty well. Needs to be a cross head screwdriver - a flat head will dig in to the paper.

My tweezers are only a very cheap pair, but they are invaluable for working with the smaller pieces. I have found that the most useful shape for general manipulating is this curved pair.

So that's it - with this strange collection of objects you can make flowers!

Lilac Flowers

I got the idea for the background on this card from Beate's Grid Technique tutorial on Splitcoaststampers. I used a linen textured cream card, and scored the grid lines with my scoreboard. Then I rubbed all over with green chalk and a ball of cotton wool. Slightly distressed the edges and added some faux stitching. Matted onto lilac paper.
The flowers are made from this same lilac paper, with black paper centres. This paper always photographs more blue than lilac no matter what I try! Coloured with green markers. The basic method for making them is the same as the No Tools Flower, but the shapes are punched out rather than hand cut. I will put up more info on this during the week. The Happy Birthday is from my Tiny Phrases Woodware set, stamped on a Nestability Oval backed with a lilac scalloped oval.

More No Tools Flowers

This is the flower I showed at the end of the No Flowers Tutorial yesterday. I changed the shape of the petals and made them a little wider. They are cut from the back of an envelope that I received in the mail, and the mat behind the backing paper is cut from the front. The backing paper is a design by Carol. I used a Woodware Leone Em - Evergreen punch for the leaves, and an X-cut corner punch - Fleur for the corners. The words are from a set by Woodware (Francois Read) called Tiny Phrases.



Here I have adapted the shape of the pointed petal to be a bit fatter, and instead of curling the petal with a teaspoon handle (or shaping tool!) I used my needle tool (darning needle) to add veining on each side of the centre crease to look more like a poinsettia.

This veining also makes the petal curve up at the sides, and there is quite a bit of height to this flower. I added an extra green layer at the back to make the leaves. I glued in 7 tiny pearl beads for the centre instead of the rolled fringed paper strip. The backing paper is again one designed by Carol which has been matted onto a piece of the same green paper used for the leaves.

Nellie with Flower Winner

Amy and I did the drawing today -




And the winner is . . . . . .









Congratulations Ruth! Please leave a comment on this post so that I can contact you.

No Tools Flower

Well . . . . . no specialist tools anyway. I thought I would show you how you can make the flower on this card using only a few simple items that most people will possess. Click on any of the pictures for a larger view. And come back tomorrow - I will have a challenge!



Here are the items I used:

• Back of a mouse mat
• Scrap of printer paper
• PVA glue
• Teaspoon
• Pencil
• Coloured Pencil
• Darning Needle
• Scissors
  

Cut three strips of paper approx. 17cmx3cm (6.5"x1.25"). They don't need to be perfect - just roughly cut. Fold each piece in half down its length as with the left hand piece here.



Cut out a half petal shape from the creased side. My petal is about 3.5cm (1.25") long.



Take your cut out petal and move it up the piece of folded paper and place it against the crease as shown. Hold in place whilst you use it as a template to cut out the next petal. This is to help get the petals approximately the same. Repeat this until you have cut out 12 petals altogether. Make sure that you use the first petal that you cut each time as your template. Otherwise your petals might get larger and larger as you go along.



I hold the petal and folded paper like this in my right hand and tap them on the table to quickly align the creases. It's then quick and easy to transfer to being held in my left hand on the crease, so that I can cut. I don't put the scissors down between each cut as this also is quicker.



Now cut out two rough little circles. These are about 1.5cm (0.5") in diameter. You are allowed to use a circle punch if you have one, but I am sticking to my promise of no specialist tools! To cut these circles I folded a small square in quarters and then cut a quarter circle shape at the corner where all the creases meet. Put a little pencil dot at the centre.



Place a small blob of glue on a scrap of paper. Touch the tip of the petal to the blob - you are only aiming to get a tiny spot on the petal tip.



Stick the tip of the petal about halfway between the pencil dot and the edge of the circle. Stick another petal opposite as shown. Then stick four more petals on the circle - spacing them out evenly between the first two.



Repeat with the second circle and remaining 6 petals so that you have two flower layers like this.



Placing the arrangement on a scrap of paper to protect your desk top, draw lines with the coloured pencil from the inner tip of the petal towards the outer tip. Just over half way looks good - but it is a matter of preference. Make the lines fan out slightly and draw each one with a quick flicking sort of movement - gives better results as the end of the line tapers out with this movement. Don't try and be too neat and even. The length of the lines needs to vary a little. Hold the flower steady with your finger in the centre just on the base of the petal you are working on.



Here are the two layers with their completed lines. Set them aside for the glue to dry completely. This is important for the shaping later on. You cannot shape wet paper.



Whilst the flower layers are drying, make the centre. To do this, cut narrow strip of paper about 20cm (8") long and roughly 0.75cm (0.25") wide. Colour in both sides of the strip with the coloured pencil. As you can see - only rough colouring is required. Then cut a fringe along one long edge across about half the width of the strip. How fine a fringe is up to you and your patience to cut it! My cuts are a couple of mm/sixteenth of an inch apart.




Take your darning needle and starting with the very end of the strip roll the paper around the needle. Start off by winding tightly, but once it's going you can loosen up a bit as you are aiming for a slightly scruffy loose-ish roll. It can be tricky to get it going - so patience is required!



When the whole length is rolled up, slide the paper off the needle and make sure that it is a fairly open coil. Then put a tiny spot of pva on the end and stick it down - hold for a few moments whilst it sets enough to let go without it popping off.



Here is a view from the top of the finished coil to show what you are aiming for.



Place the coil flat on the table, with the cut edges uppermost. Place your thumb in the centre to steady it, and use the end of the teaspoon handle to spread the fringes out and down. Keep going round and round, pulling more out from the centre as you go.



It will look a bit like this when it's all fanned out. Set it aside.



Now take your teaspoon and hold it like this. The important thing is that the handle has to have a completely straight edge, and be a flat, thin handle. If you don't have this shape of handle, then try a thin cross head screwdriver. Get a good firm grip with the bowl of the spoon held in your hand, and your index finger on the edge of the handle.



Top view of the grip. Also shows what I mean about a flat, thin handle.



Place your mouse mat at the edge of the table, and the flower near the edge of the mat. Hold the spoon handle at right angles to the surface - so that the edge of it only is in contact - and the length of it is parallel to the centre crease of one of the petals, and at the right hand edge of it. (If you are left handed you will need to start at the left edge of the petal. The entire thin edge of the handle must be flat on the petal/mat - which is why the mat needs to be at the edge of the table - to make room for your hand below the table top level.



Now the motion you are going to make is like spreading butter. Move the handle across the petal from one side to the other, keeping it parallel with the centre crease the whole time. Apply a bit of downwards pressure. Takes a bit of practice, but is easy and quick once you get the hang of it. Steady the flower with your other hand (mine is on the camera, but would normally be on the petal). As you move the handle across, the petal will curl up behind it. The more pressure you use, the more the petal will curl. If it curls too much, then gently push the edges back down a bit with your fingers. If it does not curl enough, go back over it with the spoon handle with slightly more pressure.
Curl all the petals in the same way, turning the flower each time so that you bring the petal you are working on into the same spot to get a convenient angle to use the spoon handle.



Here are both flowers with all the petals curled.



If your pencil has a 'wrong' end that is smooth and rounded like this one, it is ideal for embossing. If not, then try the wrong end of a Bic type pen, or a gel pen cap. Place it at the base of one of the petals. Now press a little, and draw an imaginary circle around the base of all the petals. Go round two or three times. Again, the harder you press the more the petals will pop up. If they pop up more than you like, then gently spread them back down again with your fingers. If less, then go around again with slightly more pressure. Do this on both layers.



Side view to show the petals popped up.



Place a tiny spot of glue in the centre of one of your layers. Place the other layer on top, arranging it so that the petals fall in the gaps of the one below. Make sure that it is reasonably centred, and then press down in the middle to stick firmly. With the pva you do have a few moments working time to adjust the position.



With the two layers stuck together, spread a thin layer of glue in a circle in the middle of the top layer. Place your fringed flower middle on top of the glue, and when you are happy with its position, press it down to secure. At this stage you can rearrange the fringing if you need/want to improve its appearance.



Ta -da!! One 'No Tools Flower'.



You can of course cut your petals in different shapes. Here is a flower I made by cutting a rounded top petal. I used paper from an envelope that I received in the mail the other day, and brushed the outer edges of the petals and the fringed centre with a gold ink pad. Sorry the picture's not too good - by the time I had finished this flower, I had run out of decent daylight to take the picture. But at least you can see the general idea.

Quick Card Today

The papers and punches were still out from my Nellie card, so this one went together very quickly as I didn't have to think about co-ordination - always a time consumer for me! I made three of the same flowers, but with pink gems in the centres. Lined them up on some green twill ribbon which matches the green Bazzill really well. Cuttlebugged the Swiss Dots, and the Petite Oval for the sentiment which is a rub-on from Pebbles Inc.
I made the card for the Splitcoaststampers Limited Supply Challenge which was not to use any stamping on the card.

Anniversary Flowers

I made this card for my husband for our anniversary yesterday (24 years).
The image is created using Art Impressions stamps. I began by stamping the watering can, and then stamped another on a piece of scrap paper to cut out and use as a mask. Using a stamp postitioner, I added the leaves and flowers - made up from two different flowers, and three different leaves. Finally used two grass stamps and tiny flowers to create some ground for the can to stand on. All the inking of the stamps was done with water colour markers. After stamping the watering can I carefully used my aqua brush to pull some of the colour off of the stamped image to solour it in. The same technique was used for the blue flowers, and the green between the grass blades. Not sure that this is a bonafide Art Impressions technique - but it works for me! You have to make sure that each layer is dry before stamping the next, and can't use the aqua brush on more than one layer to prevent colours running.
I cut and embossed the edge of the image square with a Nestability die, then lightly chalked the edges with green. The brown card is Bazzill, with lightly distressed edges. The twill tape has been stamped with a Francoise Read (Woodware) Tiny Phrases stamp - looks better in the flesh than the photo has picked up. I used a Colour Box chalk pad to ink the phrase, and didn't press too hard. The tape has taken the stamp really well. I made slots for the tape by punching pairs of tiny holes and joining them up with my craft knife. Where the tape goes through the right hand set of slots, I have used a piece of tape behind to stop them slipping back through. I cut and frayed the ends to length once the card was constructed. Two blue brads to finish to pick up the blue in the flowers.

Nellie and her Flowers

I love this paper by Pebbles Inc called Nellie's Garden Flower. Steeled myself to cut into it today! I used green Bazzill to back it, and the same green plus a pink to make the Nestability rings for Nellie to sit in. She is coloured with watercolour pencils and an aqua brush. Treated myself to some better, new pencils with more colours, and finally have a decent flesh coloured one! Nellie and the rings are adhered with little foam pads for a bit of height.
I made the flower using two sizes of Woodware daisy punches, and a Woodware sun punch. It's made from the pink Bazzill and yellow areas of the patterned paper. Shaped with a ball tool. The greeting is a Pebbles Inc rub-on. Finished off with 'diamond' gems, and organza ribbon. I'm planning on doing a tutorial this week on the flower if anybody is interested.
This card is my entry for Cute Card Thursday's Challenge 9 - Gems and Jewels.

Frogs with Balloons

I made this card for Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #47, and then realised that it fits the bill for the Stamp Something Challenge - First Somethings, so it's entered in that one too! It qualifies as the first time I have used something - my new Penny Black Toadily Yours stamp.
The patterned papers are double sided by Pebbles Inc - the spotty one is Easter Time Sprinkles/Green, and the other is Zoo Fun Animal/Wave. The orange and green card is Bazzill. Ran the green through my Cuttlebug in the Happy Birthday folder.
The Toads were stamped on plain white card in black ink, and coloured in using markers and an aqua brush. I masked off the flowers that they should be holding with tape whilst inking up, and then removed it before stamping. (Actually, I didn't remove it before stamping - said a rude word - then inked it up again and stamped a second image having remembered to remove the tape!) Lightly chalked and distressed the edge of the oval, and hand doodled a frame. I cut the slit for the tape using a small round hole punch to punch two holes and cut between them with a craft knife. I am so pleased to finally have bought myself some woven tape - even if I don't know what it's properly called! Really like it for when I don't want pretty. I made myself a little balloon template, and cut out three orange Bazzill balloons. Shaded the edges with a little chalk, and tied on three strands of embroidery cotton. Used an embossing ball tool from the back to give them a little dimension. Then I poked holes in the card on each side of the toads' hands and used a needle to thread the strands through. The threads are held in place on the back of the card with a little tape to stop them slipping out. Foam pads in the middle of the balloons to stick them to the card.

More Craft Class Cards

Another card from yesterday morning's flower punch class. The design of the card is completely Jane's, I just made the flower and constructed the card. The flower is made with the same punch as the one on the stalk I posted yesterday. I messed up the tag in class, so finished the card at home using a Nestability Petite Oval, stamped with a Woodware Tiny Phrases stamp. Added a piece of green ribbon to finish off the tag before attaching to the card with foam pads.


This second card is from the afternoon's class. We spent the time learning some techniques and ideas for using Art Impressions stamps. Only one of the pieces I stamped is done well enough to put on a card. If you click here you can see what the chair and pot stamps look like before painting. Some of the leaf and flower elements are also on this page. The background of the picture is painted freehand. I have a lot to work on with this technique, but I am happy enough with this piece to put it on a card. Again, the design of the picture is Jane's which I just followed. I think that the cushions are my favourite part!

Leaves and a Flower

Aaaahhhh . . . . after a break for the Friday night curry - yum! - here are pictures of some of what we did in craft class at the Glitter Pot today.
In the morning Jane was showing us some ideas of what to do with the new Woodware Flower and Leaf Maker punches. This flower was made using the Dahlia punch - two layers punched from patterned double sided paper and then shaped with the character shaper tool after shading the edges with an ink pad. The flower centre is made using two layers punched with the Woodware Blink Blink punch, shaded and shaped with an embossing ball tool. The calyx uses a shape punched with the Leone Em Lillium Feather punch. The stem is florists wire and tape, which is held inside the calyx with a blob of silicone glue. Really quick and easy to make. We also made a flower without a stem to put on a card, but I haven't finished that, so will post when it's done.
The other card we made uses a couple of different Leaf Maker punches. Used various green and brown papers, adding blotches with ink pads before shaping. The leaves have a small hole punched in the top, with ribbon threaded through and knotted. They are then are stuck to the card with little foam pads. I don't think that I would have come up with the idea of a row of leaves like this, and initially I wasn't too sure, but have decided that I quite like it now! Not totally happy with my leaf colours and placement, but maybe that will grow on me too!
In the afternoon we worked with Art Impressions stamps, but will post those another day.

Sugar Nellie Blog Candy

I was at the Glitter Pot today for a day of craft classes with Jane Gill - more on what I made later. First, the blog candy! Of course I couldn't go there without shopping, and I saw this little Sugar Nellie with her single flower - not surprisingly called Nellie With Flower. I thought she was just right for my blog candy to celebrate passing 5,000 hits (2,600 visitors) and my first month of blogging. I must admit to being surprised at reaching this number of hits after only a month - a real boost to the ego!

I will raffle her off at 11am GMT on 16th May. To be entered with 1 chance, leave a comment on this post telling me what most interests you and also what least interests you on my blog. To have your name put in twice for the raffle, please advertise my candy on your blog with a link. I will post internationally.

Icy Blue

I love the blue on this backing paper, especially when combined with Stickles Diamond glitter glue. The paper is another designed by Carol. The snowflake is folded using 6 diamond shaped pieces, and uses a tile that I designed in Photoshop with colours picked off the backing paper. The fold is the May Challenge fold on Circle of Crafters designed by Carolyn (Carolyninoz), and the instructions can be found here.
I outlined the backing paper with Stickles, added the organza ribbon and sentiment sticker, and then matted it onto a darker blue to create a narrow frame. The medallion is finished off with a tiny brad to pull it down in the centre which is hidden by the punched and Stickled snowflake. It looks really pretty sitting here, twinkling in the sunlight! I tried to capture the twinkle on the photo, but wasn't too successful - the enlargement shows it a bit better.

Monkeys on Blocks

A quick card for a 1st birthday. I experimented with chalking a background - need more practice, but am fairly happy with the results. I just streaked on horizontal bands of different colours, and then polished over the whole piece with a wad of cotton wool to blend. After that I ran the card through the printer to print on the block wording. This is a free download font called LMS Lance's Letter Blocks which I printed out in a dark blue, and then coloured in with a lighter blue marker. Added a little bit of shading with a grey marker to ground the blocks, and then stamped on the monkeys (Stampendous - Changuito B'day). I also stamped them on white card and coloured with water colour pencils, cut out the heads, bodies and sign, and glued them flat on the background. I masked off the original message on the sign, and then hand wrote the 1. Matted onto orange and blue card.

Butterfly Folder

I did an image swap with Kerry, and my images arrived in this beautiful folder. Hop over to her blog A Load of Old Pickle to see more of Kerry's gorgeous work. Thanks so much for the swap Kerry - I really enjoyed it, and am thrilled with my new stack of images.

More Two-for-Ones!

Two more cards made with the fold by Christian that I used on yesterday's card. I really like these to use as flowers, they do pop up from the page nicely.
Both cards are made from tiles that I designed from images of flowers - a passion flower and a dahlia. The backing papers were also designed from the same images.
On the medallion on the purple card, I again painted the white parts of the folded tile with H2Os - Moss Green - and put a pearl brad from Papermania in the centre. Faux stitching around the white linen effect card that the medallion is mounted on. I stamped the purple cardstock with one of the flourishes from a set by Hero Arts called Fantastic Flourishes. I used Versamark ink, and embossed with clear powder. I then marked lines on the back of the purple strip where I wanted to remove the rectangle, and tore it out and flipped it over to the other side of the card.
The words are from the Stampendous Flower Chat set, inked with a purple marker. I tore out the little rectangle around the words, and then tore a slightly larger one which I painted with the Moss Green before layering.













On this pink card, I again used a Papermania pearl brad in the centre of the medallion, but left the white parts as they were. I used some of the leaves from Tracey's freebie to frame the 'flower', setting everything on a pink Bazzill oval cut with a Nestability die. The white linen card is embossed with Swiss Dots, and the lower edge punched with a KureTake punch called Ring Heart. I just did one punch at each end, turning the card over for the second one to reverse the design.

Papertake Weekly Challenge Card

This is my card using a sketch by Katharina for a Papertake Weekly Challenge. Far too late for the challenge, but I liked the sketch!

The papers were all computer generated, beginning with a tea bag tile that I designed. The rest of the papers were developed from the tea bag tile. The medallion uses a fold called Two-for-One designed by Christian of April Fool Designs. The fold shows both sides of the paper, so where the white back of the paper was showing, I painted with Persimmon Twinkling H2Os. It doesn't show in the photo, but as I painted it on nice and thickly, all the tips have quite a sheen on them.
The embossed layers were done with the Happy Birthday and Tiny Bubbles Cuttlebug embossing folders, with the edges slightly distressed. I didn't have any brad colours that matched, so I sanded them lightly to give a key, and then painted them with the same colour of Twinkling H2O's as the medallion tips. I made it nice and thick. Then while it was wet, I dipped the brad into clear embossing powder and heated with my gun. Bit unorthodox perhaps, but it worked!

Blog Candy Winner

I know that I can use a random number generator, but thought that we would do it the old fashioned way! So I printed out all the comments, cut them into strips, folded them and had my daughter Amy close her eyes . . .




















. . . . . and pick one . . . . . .



















. . . and the winner of the Nestability Flowers is . . . . Theresa (Crafting the Web)!

Congratulations Theresa - I will be in contact to ask for your address!

Weekend Sketch Challenge #46

Tracey has a lovely digital download freebie of some purple flowers at the moment. It is a limited time offer - so hop over quickly! I wanted to use them on my WSC and this is the result.
I printed out the flowers and leaves from Tracey's download. I reduced them all slightly so that they would fit the scale I wanted, and also printed an extra one at a much smaller size to put on the sentiment strip. I layered up three different sizes to make the flower, and used the needle end of my DEET tool to crease the centre of each petal, and also to make creases for the veins in the leaves. For the stalk, I used Photoshop to pick off the leaf colour, print a little green rectangle, and then cut a curved strip with my scissors.
I made a shape template for the vase, by folding a piece of paper in half, and then freehand cutting a half vase shape against the crease. Once I was happy with the shape, I used the paper template to trace around onto a piece of card which had first been printed with colour picked off the flower. Cut out the vase, and then embossed with Divine Swirls. I used the negative inking technique to put some Versamark on the card, and then embossed with clear powder so that the vase is shiny on the indented parts. Of course that doesn't show in the photo. Neither does the fact that I didn't ink up the folder evenly, so the embossing is a bit patchy - so I'm calling it an aged vase effect!
Swiss Dots for the backing card, and all the white card is a linen effect finish. Hand drawn wavy purple lines around the flower layer. The words are from the Stampendous Flower Chat set, inked with a marker, stamped onto white card, and then cut out and matted onto little pieces of the same green I used for the stalk. Slightly distressed the edges of the purple card, and the green behind the words. Finished off with sheer lilac ribbon threaded through slits cut with a knife, and orange and green flat backed gems.
I think that there is enough embossing on this card to qualify for the Papertake Weekly Challenge which is Elegant Embossing so have made it to cover this challenge as well.

Butterflies

This is a folder to hold stamped images for a swap. The backing paper is another one designed by Carol and is a beautiful butterfly design, with a lovely soft green background which my camera has not done justice to at all. (Although it does look a bit better in the enlarged picture.)
The teddy stamp is by Penny Black and is called Butterfly Bear. I gave him some grass to stand on using a couple of my Art Impressions stamps, and washing around with my waterbrush. The trail of butterflies is also a Penny Black stamp called Butterfly Edge. I embossed the bottom edge of the pink Bazzill with the Stylized Flowers Cuttlebug folder. Finished off with some stick on ribbon and Stickles, and hand drawn edge to the image layer.

Autumn Owl

This card was made using a digital backing paper designed by Carol (carolivy64 of Circle of Crafters). I sized the picture to fit a 15x10.5cm card (which is roughly 6x4.25"), and printed the whole image out twice on thinnish card. One image I ran through my Cuttlebug with the Distressed Lines folder, and slightly roughed up the edges with my scissor blade. The other image, I cut off the outer band to the inner shadow line and stuck on top of the embossed image. I also printed off two other copies (cropped digitally to save ink) and cut out the circle with the owl and branches, and then just the owl. I also roughed up the edges of the circle, and coloured them with a marker to make the circle stand out. I layered the circle and the owl with thin foam pads. A little bit of Stickles glitter glue on the branches to hopefully look like they are twinkling in the moonlight with frost! I matted the whole thing on to brown Bazzill. The sentiment is a rub-on put onto a piece of the same brown Bazzil.

Cute Card Thursday #8 In the Garden

I first saw the Cute Card Thursday blog a couple of weeks ago, but this week is the first time I have managed to make a card for it. This card went together quite quickly for one of my cards! I took advice that I have seen recently and chose the papers etc first and then coloured the image. Good advice! I started out with a sketch I was going to follow, and then part way through, something completely different came to me and ended up doing that instead. Some cards just make themselves!
The stamp is by Penny Black - Lazy Days. Coloured with water colour pencils and aqua brush. Used my Nestabilities to cut the scalloped square and the green Bazzill behind it. The sentiment is a Papermania rub-on. I think that the flowery paper is Doodlebug. Finished off with flower brads, and two Nestability Flowers. The pearl brad in the centre of the flowers is coloured with a green permanent marker to match in with the card colours.