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Thursday 30 June 2011

Three Minute Thursday - more French Foliage!

Good morning! It's Three Minute Thursday here today and that means a card whisked up in just a few minutes - just the thing for those of us with a fuller-than-usual schedule towards the end of term. I'll be showing you a super-fast teacher appreciation card next week, but this week I'm still obsessed with French Foliage! Come and have a look:


We all need sympathy cards from time to time and often at very short notice too. I thought these black leaves on a neutral background would work well. I stamped the French Foliage leaves onto a Sahara Sand panel using Basic Black ink and used the droplets image to fill in the gaps with Crumb Cake ink.


The panel is popped up with dimensionals on a Sahara Sand card base and I added a simple sentiment.

The French Foliage stamps are brilliant for stamping randomly like this and you can achieve very different moods depending on the colours you use.


Here it is in  a colour combination I love - Pacific Point and Garden Green.


The punchier colours call for a punchier sentiment so I chose this one from the hostess set Afterthoughts, stamped in Basic Black on Sahara Sand card stock and cut out with my curly label punch.

Supplies needed for these cards:
Stamps: French Foliage, (sentiments are from Trendy Trees and Afterthoughts)
Ink: Basic Black, Crumb Cake, Pacific Point, Garden Green, Not Quite Navy
Card stock: Sahara Sand
Other: Curly label punch, dimensionals
You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

Yesterday, as my youngest son and I were driving home from school, I stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a lady and her little tot cross the road. The little girl was teeny-tiny and wearing a large, wide-brimmed hat. She looked so sweet toddling along that I squealed and pointed her out to my son. He agreed that she did look cute. "But," he added, "I think she'd look better with a moustache!" Never a dull moment with my boy!

Thank you for joining me for today's Three Minute Thursday and if you are time-challenged, I hope I may have inspired you to squeeze in a quick card. It seems to be Friday tomorrow - although how that can have happened I've no idea! - so do come back then for more crafting fun.

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Natures Walk birthday card

People often ask where I get my inspiration from and the answer is Life! I'm inspired by things around me! But ideas are also triggered by talking to people and today's card came about by a conversation I had with a lovely lady the other day about blender pens. I was explaining how you could get a sort of airbrushed look by blending your inks or watercolour pencils and crayons. Afterwards, I couldn't wait to have a go myself - so I made this card:


The buddleia is stamped onto a card base made with my favourite Confetti card stock. I used a post-it note mask at the bottom of the card to keep the bottom of the plant straight so that I could draw a frame around it, making it look as if the plant is bursting out of the frame. (Well that was the idea anyway!) Now, where there's a buddleia, there must be a butterfly...


 ... and here he is! I stamped him in Basic Grey ink before colouring him with my Stampin' Up watercolour pencils, then blended the colour with a blender pen. I used blue, orange and purple pencils here and I love the way you get a seamless blend.

Come and zoom in on my raised buddleia branch!


During the conversation with the same lady, we were talking about cutting stamped images out and popping them up on dimensionals. I know some people find this too fiddly but I really enjoy it and I always think the results are worth the effort. I wouldn't be without my lovely paper snips for this job - or my +3.00 reading glasses come to think of it!


Supplies needed for this project:
Stamps: Nature Walk, Vintage Labels (retired)
Ink: Marina Mist, Basic Grey
Card stock: Confetti White
Other: Pear Pizzazz, Concord Crush, Basic Grey markers, watercolour pencils
You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

Have you been reading reports about how our young people have lost the ability to speak English properly? Well it's not true in our family - here's an example: Yesterday I asked my 15-year old daughter if she'd be attending a course described in a letter emailed through from her school. "No," she replied. "You may notice that the letter refers to year 8, whereas I..." she drew herself up to her full height at this point, "... am hovering on the brink of womanhood!" We then both collapsed laughing.

Thank you for dropping in today. I shall be back tomorrow with Three Minute Thursday so, if you're looking for fast inspiration, do come and join me then.

Tuesday 28 June 2011

MMM using French Foliage and Greenhouse Garden

I took a look at the Make Your Monday challenge site today, as I've been rather enjoying Jacqueline's floral challenges, and this week there's a sketch. I have to admit that I was rather daunted by it at first as it seemed quite layer-heavy - which isn't my style of card making at all! - but I had a little think about it and came up with this card:



I decided not to use designer paper for my background, choosing instead to mask off the cross shape with strips cut off a post-it note, and sponge a soft design over the top using Crumb Cake and Old Olive inks. I've probably said before that there isn't a day goes by without me using Old Olive ink! I am still using the same pad I bought three years ago, I have never re-inked it and it's still going strong!


All the stamps in my French Foliage set that AREN'T leaves were used to stamp this background! To underline the soft effect, I used a piece of vellum for the central panel of the card, cutting a border for it using my spiral border punch and curling up the corners.


Have you seen the leaf spray? It's a sizzlits die exclusive to Stampin' Up called Little Leaves and I love it! I teamed it with three of my favourite flowers from the two-step stamping set Greenhouse Garden. The flowers are clear-embossed so they're all glossy in real life and they're finished with the tiny self-adhesive pearls.


Supplies needed for this project:
Stamps: French Foliage, Greenhouse Garden, Pocket Silhouettes (sentiment)
Ink: Old Olive, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Marina Mist, Not Quite Navy, versamark
Card stock: Whisper White, vellum
Other: Little Leaves sizzlits die, spiral border punch, clear embossing powder, basic pearls
You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.


Whenever we go to fairs or sales I always have a look on the bric-a-brac stalls to see if there are any good board games as they can be a fun way of spending a rainy afternoon. At the school fair on Saturday, I was lucky enough to spot a game of Articulate for the bargain price of £1. It's a great game where one person describes the word on the card using words (and without saying the actual word!) and their team guesses what it is. We couldn't wait for a rainy day to get stuck in so I can report that it's perfect for our family, which ranges in age from 10 to 50, and we all highly recommend it!

Thank you for coming to visit me today. I always appreciate you spending a little of your time with me and would love to return the visit if you leave me a comment!
See you tomorrow,

Monday 27 June 2011

Masculine Monday – using French Foliage

Good morning! Welcome to Masculine Monday - my weekly series to inspire you to make cards for the males in your life. Today I've been inspired by Natasha's great sketch on the Clean and Simple Stamping site and my fantastic French Foliage stamp set.

Come and see what I've done with them:


For my background, I decided to use this stunning paper from the Elegant Soirée designer paper range. I love how the tone-on-tone swirls give movement to the card - as if the wind is blowing the leaves about! (Or perhaps that's a bit fanciful for a Monday morning!)


I cut out a label to fit on top, scoring lines round the edges with the scoring blade on my Fiskars trimmer and sponging afterwards to add definition. My sentiment is a mixture of two sentiments - something I love to do and something that's easy when you have markers and a stamp-a-majig.


The leaves were stamped in Old Olive and cut out with my paper snips before being arranged on the card front. I always think leaves are a great image for male cards - or female ones come to that!


Supplies needed for this project:
Stamps: French Foliage, Hopeful Thoughts, Occasional Greetings
Ink: Old Olive, Early Espresso
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Early Espresso marker, Elegant Soirée designer paper
You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

I hope you had a lovely weekend. After our busy Saturday we spent a quiet family day yesterday. The sun seemed to be making up for lost time so we gathered together a picnic and spent the day wandering over the countryside together. There was a real holiday feeling that made it quite difficult to get back into school mode...

Thank you for popping in today for Masculine Monday. I'll be back tomorrow with some more crafty goodness and I'll hope to see you then.

Saturday 25 June 2011

Tart and Tangy teacher thank you

Well I was up bright and early this morning, eager to see what the Less is More challenge would be today,  and it was to make a card using this fabulous sketch.

With the end of term coming up in a few weeks, it's been on my mind to make cards for my youngest son's teachers, so that was the thinking behind my offering this week. Come and have a look:



I always like to use a traditional apple motif on my teacher appreciation cards and this one is from the Tart and Tangy set. Of course only the shiniest, yummiest looking apples will do for those hard-working teachers...


... and these apples were given a coat of Poppy Parade ink before giving them a super-shine with Crystal Effects. I love how they look against the soft masked, sponged and stamped background - and yes, that background was stamped with a leaf from French Foliage! If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I'm using this set on everything that moves at the moment! The sentiment is stamped inside the lines because I thought they looked a bit like handwriting guides.


Supplies needed for this project:
Stamps: Tart and Tangy, French Foliage, Just Believe (sentiment)
Ink: Old Olive, Early Espresso
Card stock: Confetti Cream
Other: Markers, Crystal Effects
You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

I had to leave my apples to dry before assembling this card  (don't attempt to speed up the process with a heat gun as you get a nasty bubbly mess instead of a nice smooth shine!) so I've been at my older son's tennis match and my younger son's school fair since making them. I'm happy to report that the sun shone on these events and great fun was had by all (although I admit to being very glad to get home and have a revivifying cup of tea!)

Hope you're all having a great weekend! I shall be popping round to see what everyone's been making a bit later. Thank you for coming to visit me and leaving a comment - I really appreciate it.

Friday 24 June 2011

OLW59 - using Greenhouse Garden and Nature Walk

You may be wondering whether you're in the right place, but your eyes don't deceive you - Crafting Clare's Paper Moments is a French Foliage-free zone today! Don't worry, I'm not so fickle as to have gone off it already! It's just that I've been waiting for the fabulous One Layer Wednesday challenge to come out and, when I found that it was to use this picture as the inspiration for a one layer card, well, it didn't exactly shriek leaves to me! Here's what I made:


I don't know quite why (!) but I decided to use the remains of a top note cut-out to use as a mask which I held over my card base while I sponged a background inside with So Saffron and Old Olive inks. I've used my favourite Confetti card stock with those beautiful speckles in it.


The white flowers from Greenhouse Garden were stamped on top of this and embossed with white embossing powder. I really like the misty look of them! The stalk from the set was added randomly in Old Olive and then came the Nature Walk plant, which I coloured with Daffodil Delight and Old Olive markers before stamping repeatedly.


To finish I defined the white flowers with markers and added a sentiment using my stamp-a-majig. This was one of those cards which started with me wondering what would happen if I just... and then ended up like this!


Supplies needed for this project:
Stamps: Nature Walk, Greenhouse Garden, Sincere Salutations
Ink: So Saffron, Old Olive, Whisper White Craft ink
Card stock: Confetti Cream
Other: Top Note die, markers, white embossing powder
You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

This week, my 10-year old son went to a science fair at the 'big school' his older brother and sister attend. When he got home I asked if he'd enjoyed his day. It was brilliant, he told me - he'd met his sister's friends at lunchtime! I told him that sounded great, but what about the science aspect of the day? He then launched into an animated monologue about how this cool guy had made a ball of flame on the end of a stick and it had exploded! He added that he was thinking about buying some hydrogen and some nitric acid on ebay. He then disappeared outside to play, leaving me mentally picturing the charred remains of the family home...

Can you believe it's Friday already? We have a packed programme of cricket, shopping expeditions, summer fairs and tennis tournaments scheduled, so fingers crossed for the weather! I hope you have a lovely weekend too, whatever you have planned. Thanks again for all your support - I really appreciate my followers, your visits and comments, and hope to see you here again very soon.

Thursday 23 June 2011

Three Minute Thursday - French Foliage

Good morning! It's Thursday and that means something speedy in my weekly series of three-minute cards! I 'm very excited about the cards I'm showing you today because they use what I am beginning to realise could be my favourite Stampin' Up stamp set of all time! (and that is a very big claim indeed...) Come and see what I've been up to:


Yes, I've been using my new French Foliage set - in fact it hasn't been back in its box since it arrived! This is a very quick way to make a card: mask off a rectangle, sponge inside and stamp over the top. Add a sentiment and you have a card - and one that is easy to post too!


Here's a close-up of the stamping. I've made little masks for my leaves, which I'm keeping in the stamp box for future use, and I used them here so that the text would flow round them. I've tried these stamps in shades of green and they look fabulous, but I thought it would be fun to be a little inventive with colour today! So for this one I used Marina Mist and Not Quite Navy with a touch of Early Espresso but, being me, I couldn't just leave it there...


... so here's another one, this time stamped in delicious shades of Elegant Eggplant and Perfect Plum!

Supplies you need to make the blue card:
Stamps: French Foliage, Thank You Kindly
Ink: Early Espresso, Marina Mist, Not Quite Navy
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Stamp-a-majig
You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

While I was typing this, a little green leaf-like creature landed on my keyboard causing me to leap into the air in quite an athletic way! I'd been tackling the front hedge with my clippers this morning as it was threatening to take over the house, and I must have brought my little friend inside with me. All in all, it's been a pretty leafy day!

I can't help feeling there might be one or two (or eighteen...) more French Foliage cards on the way but please do let me know if you're getting fed up with them! Thank you so much for visiting me today. I'll be back tomorrow if you fancy popping back then.

Wednesday 22 June 2011

French Foliage meets Growing Green

Yesterday, when I said I'd be combining French Foliage with Growing Green, I was really half-joking but the idea took hold of my mind. I'd also been thinking about this sketch on the Clean and Simple Stamping site, as well as the challenge on Make My Monday - to make a floral tag, either on its own or as part of a card. Naturally all these ideas blended into one and this is what I came up with:


The background was made by masking off areas with post-it notes, sponging in colour and stamping over the top with this gorgeous leaf image from French foliage. There's a fabulous ink splodge image in this set too and I added a bit of that over the top.


The label was made with a piece of Whisper White card stock shaped at the top with a corner rounder. I stamped it with leaves using the stamping-off technique which gives a lovely faded look. The rose from Growing Green was stamped in Cherry Cobbler ink and then coloured with my dark red water colour pencil and a blender pen. I cut it out with my fab paper snips, pierced a hole through it and the tag, popped it up onto the tag and tied it on with a length of Baja Breeze seam binding.


All it needed was a sentiment and I thought this gorgeous birthday stamp from Perfect Punches was ideal. It was easy to colour just the bits I needed using markers.

Supplies needed for this project:
Stamps: French Foliage, Growing Green, Perfect Punches
Ink: Marina Mist, Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, Always Artichoke, Soft Suede, Cherry Cobbler
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Watercolour pencil, blender pen, markers, Baja Breeze seam binding
You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

How excited am I about the French Foliage set? Well on a scale of 1-10 it has to be about 29!!! It's Three Minute Thursday tomorrow and I won't be offering any prizes for guessing what set will be featured... Thank you so much for dropping in today and I'll hope to see you tomorrow.

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Growing Green roses!

Oh dear! I just can't leave the Growing Green set alone! Today I made another birthday card using the rose image. Come and have a look:


Now this may look a bit like this design that I showed you last week but it uses a different technique. I stamped the rose image onto Confetti White card stock, using Rich Razzleberry ink, and washed the colour into the petals using an aqua painter. When this had completely dried, I added the leaves and then sponged over the whole card with Bashful Blue ink.


Here's a close-up to show you the purplish tinge you get when the blue ink brushes over the Razzleberry - quite subtle but I rather like it.


I stamped a stitched frame in Cherry Cobbler ink using one of the stamps I made from the In Stitches wheel (see here for how I did it!) and then sponged the edges of the card front with a touch of Rose Red ink. The sentiment is from one of this year's Sale-a-bration sets, retired now.

Supplies needed for this project:
Stamps: Growing Green, Vintage Vogue, So Happy For You (retired), 
Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Bashful Blue, Cherry Cobbler, Rose Red, Basic Black
Card stock: Confetti White
Other: In Stitches wheel
You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your door. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

I might just have finished making things with Growing Green for the time being because my friendly UPS man has just delivered a box which contains a certain French Foliage set that I've had my eye on for ages! Or perhaps I can combine both... now there's a thought! Thank you for looking at my card today and if you'd like to pop back tomorrow, I'm sure I'll have something a bit leafy going on!

Monday 20 June 2011

Masculine Monday – wallet-style card

Good morning! There's always a male card on a Monday at Crafting Clare's Paper Moments and today, it's a card with a difference! The challenge over at the inspirational Less is More site this week is to make a monogrammed card and that set me thinking about an idea I had ages ago when I was designing this pirate chest: to make a wallet-style card that holds a gift voucher. Come and have a look:


The card is a gift card holder, made out of Chocolate Chip card stock and based on this design by Dawn Griffith. I love the way the belly band, which keeps the card closed, makes it look like a real wallet. I pierced round all the edges and added faux stitching with a Chocolate Chip marker before distressing the whole thing heavily with Chocolate Chip ink.


Here's the inside, which shows the brilliant curved opening where you'd slot your gift voucher in - perhaps one of my own Stampin' Up vouchers! 



Alright, alright, I don't know any men who'd like one either, but I bet you know a lady who'd love one! Just send me an email if you'd like me to sort one out for you, or to find out more.

But what about the monogramming? Well that's just been stamped on with versamark ink and embossed using gold embossing powder but I'll let you into my cunning secret...


... I found the exact initials I wanted in a word from the Basic Phrases sentiment set - 'congrats'! I just coloured the three letters carefully with my versamark pen before stamping. Of course you're not always going to be lucky enough to find the letters you want together like this but it's worth a look because it certainly saves time!

Supplies needed for this project:
Stamps: Basic Phrases
Ink: Chocolate Chip
Card stock: Chocolate Chip
Other: Chocolate Chip marker, versamark marker, piercing tool, gold embossing powder, brad (from stash)

Hope you've had a wonderful weekend. The weather here has been mixed to say the least but that didn't stop us from helping my small nephew celebrate his fifth birthday on Saturday. (Phew! You could power a small country with the energy provided by 18 small boys!) The following day my children presented their father with hand-made cards and gifts and then gladdened his heart by agreeing to go on a 12 mile cycle ride! Which left me the utter luxury of catching up on some old films! Bliss!

Thank you for visiting me today. I shall enjoy returning your visit and seeing what you've been up to. Tomorrow I plan to show you a floral birthday card, so do pop in again if you have a minute.

Happy Monday!

Friday 17 June 2011

OLW - using Party This Way

Regular readers of my blog will know that I'm a huge fan of one-layer cards and rarely use more than a couple of layers on my cards.  One-layer cards have the advantage of being easy and inexpensive to post too so they're like a great idea all round!  I had a lovely time making a card for last week's One Layer Wednesday challenge so I kept an eye out for this week's - and it's a colour challenge: to use aqua, orange and yellow.

Here's what I made:


It's a bunch of birthday balloons! Do you like the strings? I drew those in with a soft pencil and used the lines as a guide for piercing before erasing them.


The numerical balloon is from Party This Way. I made a mask (by stamping a spare balloon on a post-it and cutting it out) and placed it over the orange balloon before stamping the aqua one.


The post-its came in handy again for masking off a strip to ground my sentiment. I do love this lively-looking 'happy birthday'!

Supplies required:
Stamps: Party This Way
Ink: Tangerine Tango, So Saffron, Baja Breeze, Basic Black
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Piercing tool, corner rounder

Well it's coming up for the weekend and this Sunday will be fathers' day. My children have a few things planned but I shall say no more as my husband has been known to take a glance at my blog and I'd hate to spoil the surprise!

Thank you for popping in to my blog today - and remember to leave a comment if you'd like to as I love to return your visits! Have a great weekend and I'll see you very soon.

Thursday 16 June 2011

Three Minute Thursday - punched flowers

Good morning! Welcome to Three Minute Thursday - the place to come if you want inspiration for quick cards. Of course I'm not just here for inspiration - if you live in the UK, you can also order any of the items you see me using here. Just send me an email or give me a ring on 01280 820593 and I'll be delighted to help and to have your order delivered to your door.

Today's fast card is inspired by Make My Monday. The second challenge on this new site is to create a card using punched or die-cut flowers. Here's what I came up with:


It is the work of a moment to scribble on an acrylic block with marker pens, mist the block with water and stamp onto the card front and it makes a great background. EDITED TO ADD: There's been a lot of interest in this technique! It's been around for a long time but I first came across it at a Stampin' Up training session about a year ago where we dipped the block in an ink pad like an ordinary stamp. I thought it would be a great idea to use several colours, so I brought my markers out, but I'm sure it's been done many times before!


I stamped some stalks (using the handy stalk from Greenhouse Garden) and topped them with my favourite little flower from the Boho Blossoms punch. The centres are punchings from my 1/8" handheld punch!


This sentiment has lots of movement in it and, stamped in Basic Black,  it really pops against the background.


Here are some different versions - flowers with pearl or rhinestone centres; strong, medium or faint backgrounds; a sentiment stamped in Always Artichoke - but the left-hand one appeals most to me. I would ask you which one you like best but the picture certainly wasn't my finest photographic hour so it's probably hard to tell!

Supplies
Stamps: Sincere Salutations, Greenhouse Garden (stalk)
Ink: Basic Black
Card stock: Confetti Cream, Poppy Parade
Other: Boho Blossoms punch, markers, self-adhesive rhinestones or pearls (optional)

I'm having a hectic week and I expect many of you are finding the same. This half of the summer term is the time when schools, clubs, community organisations and everyone else decides to have their open events, fairs, concerts, performances etc and so I'm finding that when I attend one event I have to leave early to make it to another; or I have a mad dash to drop one child off somewhere only to find that I should be picking another child up at the same time but on the other side of town! Eeek! I have another five and a half weeks of this and I'm feeling dizzy already!

I hope you've enjoyed your visit here and I do appreciate you spending your time with me. I'll have another project to show you tomorrow and I hope you can join me again.

Take care,