Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #225

Hello dear friends and welcome!  So pleased you came by for a visit!

Here we are with Crafty Cardmakers' first Challenge for 2019.  Lin is our host and the Theme is 'Winter'.
This is really odd for me at the moment as we are suffering through a fairly intense heat wave right now.  Temperature at this moment is 36C and for the next couple of days it will be in the low 40's .. hot, hot, hot!!!!   Thank goodness for airconditioning!!  LOL!!

Anyway, our Challenge, as always, is for whatever you care to create.  It can be a card, a scrap layout, mixed media piece, home decor, whatever you wish to do is fine as long as it fits the Theme.

So, for my DT contribution, I have created a little Amigurumi Snowman!

He stands 5" tall and was made from a free pattern found at Amigurumi Today.

To display him, I created a very simple background.  Using watercolour paper, I stamped the snowflakes with embossing ink and then heat embossed them in white.

I then mixed up a little Lindy's Stamp Gang Magicals with water to create the colour and simply brushed it on using more water to move the colour around a bit.  Colours used are Tiffany Lou's Blue and Danny Zuko's Denim

The splatters were created with watered down gesso.

A sheet of tissue paper was used for the foreground and I added a few berries and tiny pine cones for a little more interest.

I hope you like my little snowman and the background I created for him and that you feel inspired to join in with the Challenge.

For a ton more inspiration, and to link up your entry, pop on over to the Crafty Cardmakers blog and check out the fabulous creations by the rest of the Team.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge # 225 - 'Winter'

Thank you so much for stopping by and for any comments you may care to leave.  I read them all and appreciate each and every one!!


Have fun crafting!!
Take care and God Bless.
oxox Marg

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #221

Hello everybody and welcome to my crafty space!  Hope you are having a good day!!

It's time for a new Challenge at Crafty Cardmakers.
Angela  is our lovely host and the Theme is -
 EXPLOSION OF COLOUR!!
As always, whatever you wish to create is fine, as long as you use lots and lots of colour!!

For my DT contribution, I have created a simple tag.

I started with a piece of watercolour paper and used Distress Inks to add the colour.  The colours I used are Mustard Seed, Fired Brick, Forest Moss, Stormy Sky and Seedless Preserves.

Dried the inks a little with my heat gun and then daubed gesso through a Floral stencil by Kaisercraft, went around the edges of the flowers with a white gel pen and added a little stamping.

Once all of that was dry, I cut it to fit a 6.5" x 3.5" Craft Tag by Ranger and glued it down.
The flowers and leaves are by Little Birdie and I added some prills and micro beads in and around the cluster.

The die is Sevington Border by Memory Box.  This was a scrap left lying on my desk.  Thought it was time to put it to good use.

The sentiment was generated on my computer.  I have a page of little quotes and sayings which I typed out in Word and then printed off.  So handy when you need a quick little quote for something.

The ribbon for the bow was coloured with the same Distress Inks used for the background.

So, have I inspired you at all to join in with the Challenge?  Pop on over to the CCM blog and take a peek at the creations by my Teamies.  I'm sure you'll find plenty to inspire you there.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #221 - Explosion of Colour

Thank you so much for stopping by.  It is so lovely to have you visit and thank you for any little comment you may care to leave.
Have yourselves a wonderful day!
Take care and God Bless.
oxox Marg

Getting ready for Christmas

Hello my dear friends and lovelies!!  So pleased you dropped by. 

Hope you are all having a wonderful day.

Well, I have finally started making my Christmas cards.  

You might be thinking that it's still only October, but I'm thinking 'Oh my goodness!!  It's near the end of October already and I haven't even started on my Christmas cards!!!!'   LOL!!

For a little while now I have been testing different techniques on making Masterboards and I finally did one for Christmas that I really liked.  It is much the same as one I did a while ago (you can check it out here if you wish) and, just as I did back then, I have cut this one up to create my cards.

This piece has been matted on some green cardstock.

The Distress Ink colours used for the background are Forest Moss, Crushed Olive, Fired Brick and Wild Honey.   The poinsettia stencil is from Tim Holtz.   It was one of the things I purchased from Funky Junky Boutique with the voucher I was lucky enough to win from Mini Album Makers Challenge Blog.

To construct the layers under the cluster, I used some corrugated board (which was lightly swiped with gesso) half of a die cut doily and, somewhere underneath it all, there is a small piece of gauze as well.

Created the flair sentiment by printing it, punching it out and covering it with an Epoxy Sticker.
Easy Peasy!

Another piece of the Masterboard on the inside ..

.. and the full frontal!!

I will have a few more of these to share with you.  As a matter of fact, I will probably bore you silly with all the Christmas cards I will be sharing over the next month or more so I will apologise for that up front .. LOL!!



Have you started your Christmas preparations yet??   I usually end up leaving mine till the last minute and then get totally stressed out in the rush.   Hopefully I will get all my cards made soon (??!!??  Ha!!)  and then I can concentrate on the rest.  I did say 'Hopefully'.  LOL!!

Thank you so much for dropping by and taking a look.
Have a wonderful day!!
Take care and God Bless.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #197 - Fancy Folds

Hello lovely visitors and welcome to my blog.  Hope you are having a wonderful day.

There's a new Challenge over at Crafty Cardmakers and I am happy to tell you that it's my turn to play Host!
The Theme is Fancy Folds and this particular Challenge is for cards only. 

I wasn't sure what type of card to make for this Challenge.  Thought about Step cards and Easel cards but they weren't really what I wanted to do.  Then I saw a card on Pinterest that piqued my interest .. an Upright Z Fold card .. I had never made one of these so I thought, 'That's what I'll do.  Something new and different.'    Well, for me anyway.

The papers are a mix of Maja and Kaisercraft.  I seem to be using them a lot lately but they do go so very well together.

I still had quite a bit of Autumn coloured bits and pieces on my work bench left over from the last Challenge (yep!!  afraid I haven't really been very particular about cleaning up my Craft room) so decided to use some of them.

The flowers are available at Megs Garden.  They were a creamy white and I altered them with sprays made from watered down acrylic paint.  I always make sure to wet the flowers with water first and then the colour soaks in really well.

The leaves were cut from Maja papers with a Cheery Lynn die.

Had to add some prills of course, with some micro beads mixed in, and I also added some gesso highlights to the flowers and leaves along with a few splats on the base.

 This is another first for me.  The bit of 'lace' was made with a mould and Acrylic Gap Filler.  It is a little fiddly but quite easy to do and looks pretty good, I reckon! 

When you start to open it right out, this card is fairly long ..

 .. and a bit difficult to photograph but I managed to get it in one shot.

 Easy to see how it stands up here.  I used a gem brad to anchor it.

It was fun to make and, although I probably won't use this style a lot, I might make some of my Christmas cards like this.

Update:  I have just found out that it was Berit Rosenfeldt who first created this fold.  Thank you Berit .. it is awesome!!   Unfortunately I cannot find a current blog of hers to link to but HERE is a video of the original cards.  I'm afraid it's in Danish but the cards are gorgeous!! 

Well, I hope I have given you some inspiration to try a new style of card and to join in with our Challenge!  For more inspo', pop on over to the Blog and take a look at the wonderful creations by my Teamies and then link up your entry.  Please read our rules and take note of the 15 Challenge limit.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #197 - Fancy Folds.

Thank you so much for your visit and for leaving me a little love .. I  really appreciate it.
Whatever you plan to do for the rest of your day, do it safe and do it happy!!

Take care and God Bless.
oxox   Marg

MM - Clean and Simple

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog.  So pleased you dropped by.

I have been playing with my Lindy's Magicals again and, this time, created a couple of clean and simple cards.

I've actually been getting into a bit of a rut with my cards.  They were all starting to look the same to me so, I thought I would try something a little different.

No background papers on these two, just some magicals and texture paste.

As you can see, both cards are pretty much the same with only a few, slight differences.

This card measures 4" x 6" and the Magicals colour I used is Danny Zuko's Denim.

I used removable masking tape to mask off the area I wanted to colour, wet the paper and then dropped some of the powder onto it. 

You get such a great effect with the magicals and, although the texture paste ran under the stencil a little,  I love how it soaked up some of the colour.  It is possible that I didn't dry the magicals properly but, as I said, I like the effect.

 A piece of gauze under the flowers for some soft texture and then plenty of prills and some micro beads for extra effect.  I saw this combination on Tracey Sabella's blog and really loved how it looked so thought I'd try it out ..  Love it even more now!

 

My second card measures 3.75" x 7" and the colour I used here is Greased Lightnin' Green.

 The little medallion shape was made with a glue gun, some Mod Melts and a silicon mould.  I sprayed it with the same Magicals for a bit of added colour.

 I dabbed the gauze on both cards with gesso just to give it a bit more structure.

I didn't pre-mix the Magicals.  I simply wet the watercolour paper and then picked up a small amount of the powder on a paint brush and simply flicked it onto the page.  To spread the colour a bit more I sprayed again with a bit more water and this was the result.  I love how you get so many different shades just from the one colour .. awesome!

Lots of prills again.

.. and a final look at both cards together.

Unfortunately my stamping is not as  sharp as I would have liked and the texture paste bled a bit under the stencil but, all in all, I am really happy with the way these turned out.  They are certainly different from what I usually do and, I think, that's a good thing.

I apologise for the long post but I felt that these two cards needed to be shown together.  So glad that you made it to the end.

Thank you so much for popping in and taking a look .. I do hope you enjoyed the visit.

Have yourselves a wonderful day!!
Take care and God Bless.