All at sea

My third post today - this rediscovered Kanban stamp set is really inspiring me!

This time I have used the lighthouse stamp, which I stamped and coloured with Promarkers, using a mixture of blues and aquas for the sea and then going over the water area and the foam at the edge on the shore with clear wink of Stella. I die cut a "porthole" in a sheet of woodgrain effect paper, with the boards running horizontally to look like part of a boat, and used two circle dies to cut a frame for it in silver card. The "rivets" on the porthole are tiny silver holographic dots left over from a previous project.

I am sharing this with

Mod Squad - Water
Make My Monday - Going round in circles 

Another Kanban card

Earlier today, I wrote about using stamps from a very old Kanban kit - it must be at least 10 years old. Here is another card made from a stamp in the kit.

This time I stamped it twice, and cut out the woman from one of the images, and coloured everything using Promarkers. Then I cut out the "window" area between the woman and the flowers and mounted the design onto a slightly larger piece of coordinating green card, finishing it with ribbon, gems and the second woman layered on top of the first with 3D adhesive.

I am sharing this with

Retro Rubber - Anything Goes RRCB35
Addicted to stamps and more - Make Your Mark
Crafty Gals Corner - Anything Goes
A Beautiful Mess - Anything Goes

Pink pearls

The latest kit to be tackled in my decluttering is a Kanban one that I bought from QVC a good many years ago. It must actually be a very long time, because a big attraction for me was that it included lots of sheets of die cut nesting shapes in white, black and silver, which means it must have been before I got my first die cutting machine.

It also included several sheets of stamps, and although I use nearly all the stamps regularly, for some reason I've always stored them in the kit box. Actually I always thought it was a rather odd combo - most of the stamps don't really work with most of the shapes!

The die cut shapes are now down to the last few - those in peculiar shapes that don't seem to work with anything much, or odd sizes that are too big or too small to be any use, so I think I'm going to punch them out of the retaining cardstock and use them for die cutting smaller shapes of my own choice.

I will move the stamps into my normal storage boxes, arranged according to theme as I normally do. But first, an important task - just ONE of the stamp sheets was totally NBUS, still sealed in its cellophane pack. I couldn't file it away without letting it see ink, could I? So I whipped up this quick and CAS card using the swirls and flowers stamp and the large flower stamp, and finished it with a sentiment that was a magazine freebie.

The large flowers have had pink pearl centres added - these came out of the fab bargain bag that I bought at the Make It Show.

I am sharing this with

Suzy Bee's Blooming Challenge - Use some pearls
Sweet Stampin Challenge - Swirls and Pearls
Creative Card Crew - Clean and simple  

Trouble with the Christmas Shopping

The background I've used for this card is actually one that went wrong for a card I was making a couple of weeks ago - I put the card into the knitting effect embossing folder back-to-front so it came out debossed rather than embossed. But I reckoned it looked like a forest of tiny Christmas trees, so I kept it to use on a Christmas card.

The paper I cut the border from, sentiment and cartoon are all from the Katy Sue CD "The Christmas Spirit". UK friends will immediately recognise the real-life store those 5p carrier bags came from!

I am sharing this with

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Use a Sentiment
Fab 'n' Funky - Christmas
Jingle Belles - Santa Baby

Something Beginning with A at Cardz 4 Guyz

It's challenge time again at Cardz 4 Guyz, and today Helen has chosen "Something Beginning with A"

I decided to use A is for Army, and printed out this pyramage topper from the La Pashe CD "Something for everyone" and backing paper from La Pashe's "Flippin families". I was hoping to find a bit of camouflage fabric among Mark's old Army kit, but it's over 30 years now since he left the army and he doesn't have any left, so I made my own by daubing distress inks in greens and browns on a scrap of hessian. The textured paper is from a DCWV pad and I've used various shades of grey for the layering.

I am sharing this with
Something for the big or biggest boy at Shopping Our Stash

Curiosity Corner

My kit-using spree continues, this time with Dovecraft's Curiosity Corner collection. I was lucky enough to win a huge bundle of the complete range two or three years ago, and although I've made scores of cards with it, and the elements often find their way into other projects too,  I still have a fair amount left.

I've made my three cards from the kit, but two of them are for future DT posts, so I'm only sharing one today.

All the elements are from the kit. The bordered wood panel is fussy cut from one of the 6 x 6 papers, and that and the background have ben lightly inked around the edges. The sentiment is stamped with a stamp from the kit.

I am sharing this with Ooh la la Creations - Feathered Friends.
And with Lunagirl Moonbeams - Flowers and Birds 

Gorjuss Girl

A few months ago a lovely friend gave me a huge kit of Gorjuss toppers, tags, decoupage and papers, and although it's far from an old kit I was in the mood to play with it yesterday so I added it to my pile of "Make three cards" kits.

I did make three cards with it, but I'm only sharing one of them with you today because it's the one that uses some pearls, and I want to share it with Suzy Bee's Blooming Challenge this week where the twist is Add Some Pearls. 

All things of nature

I've taken a break from clearing out the kits for my next card and gone for a very CAS look. The sentiment is a very old Paper Artsy stamp and I die cut a butterfly out from the card above it, then used foam pads (of which I found a HUGE pack while decluttering my craft drawers, so I'm trying to use them instead of Pinflair glue when I can)  to raise the whole thing above the polka dot background.

I am sharing this with

Less is More - Polka Dots
Allsorts Challenge - Wings  
Use Your Stuff - Pop Dots

Shiny, shiny, shiny

My journey through old kits continues.... today was the turn of a Kanban kit that was crammed with luxurious looking foiled cards and glittered acetates in sumptuous brocade designs. Each element in the kit is gorgeous in its own right, but when it comes to putting them together I'm at an absolute loss to know what to do. However in the past I must have dome something because all that is left of some of the purple and gold sheets is a handful of snippets.

Or rather, all that WAS left, because those snippets found their way onto this card.

The gold part of the design is rather a pinkish shade of gold, more of a rose gold. Which meant of course that it didn't work with any of the gold I had lifted out for matting. However a delve into the snippets box brought up a few odds and ends of purple card, just enough - and I mean ONLY just enough! - to mat everything and die cut a butterfly. The "gems" are actually holographic peel off dots left over from a different kit.

I'm sharing this at Pixie's Snippets Playground where I was delighted to be one of last week's picks. This week it's the Easter Holidays so who knows what shenanigans the playmates will get up to?

I did make two other cards while I had the kit out, but they flatly refused to be photographed. My camera simply couldn't focus on the acetate I used for one, and when I focussed it manually it said "You've got to be joking" and reset itself. While the other was loaded up with so much reflective bling that you could see me and the camera all over the front of it rather than the card itself.

Hello again, Hunkydory

Every now and then I set myself a personal challenge to lift out all my old kits and make three cards using each. I've been doing it for years and it's a great way of restoring a lost mojo, building up a supply of cards to sell for charity and stopping myself from feeling guilty about all the kits I've bought and hardly touched. Kits look so attractive when a TV presenter is flicking through the contents and showing samples, don't they? But 9 times out of 10 you get them home and find there is too much in them for your needs, or they stifle your creativity rather than encouraging it, or even that the card and paper is just too lovely to cut in to.

I find that ALL of the above tends to apply to Hunkydory kits, and yet I'd bought several of them before I realised that I have a problem with kits!

Anyway, I got a couple of them that I have merged together out this weekend and have been trying to do something a bit more creative than I usually do with them. I think the backgrounds and toppers are a mix-and-match selection from both kits. I can't remember the names of the kits, I've had them for years! Here are the three cards I made from it.

I am sharing these with the Flowers challenge at Fab'n'Funky.

Kraft and mint for spring

This card is made with some printed corrugated card from a DCWV stack, along with matching plain mint green card (in real life, it's a much better match than the photo suggests). The border is punched with a Martha Stewart punch, and the butterfly is one of my oldest dies, I think it is a Marianne one.
 The panel the butterfly is sitting on is stamped with Brilliance ink in Pearlescent Lime  - you can't read the script but it is a list of flowers and their meanings, just right for spring.

I am sharing this with
Butterfly Challenge - Margins and/or Mint
ATSM - Anything Goes

Tick-tock

This week's decluttering concentrated on my snippets box - I went through it and discarded anything that had got shabby or dog eared, or really WAS too small to be useful, and arranged the remainder into a rough-ish order (which, over the last 24 hours, has already slipped into chaos).

While sorting it out, I discovered a few treasures like this half sheet of clock patterned paper. I can't remember where it came from, but being both old and clock themed it was perfect for the Clocks theme at Shopping Our Stash. And I also found a few scraps of patterned metallic card. How old are they? Well, older UK readers may remember a notorious Vintage kit that QVC sold, it must be at least 15 years ago, that many of us bought thinking how wonderful it was, and then couldn't think of what to do with it when we got it home? Well, the card came from that kit. There was just enough of this pattern to cut a few cogs with.

I added a stamped pocket watch and words panel, and a panel made by swiping a stone wall embossing folder with a little Walnut Stain Distress Ink before embossing.

The matting, too, is done with ancient stuff;  on my first ever trip to Hobbycraft - literally in the last century - I picked up a pack of what I thought was matt silver and gold card which turned out to be paper with a rather odd texture, and most of it is still lurking around unused.

March Rudolph Day is here!

It's the 25th of March and that means it is Rudolph Day over at Scrappymo's. It's our monthly chance to get ahead with out Christmas cards - and there's a fab prize of a choice of dies to be won too!

Here's my Design Team card for this month - I made the reindeer's faces by inking up my fingertip and pressing it in the card. The smiles and antlers are drawn freehand, I used tiny googly eyes ( a fab find in my local bargain shop, bags containing at least 100 of each of three sizes for 79p, that's about $1 to you US folk!) for the eyes, and tiny red adhesive pearls for the noses. A simple fun sentiment using a Studio G stamp is all that was needed to finish the card. This would be a great card to make with children, they'd love the fingerprinting part, and if my own grandchildren are anything to go by, googly eyes will fascinate them.

 

You have until the end of the month to pop over to Scrappymo's and link up your own Rudolph Day card.

 

I'm sharing this with

Winter Wonderland - For a Child (to make or to receive!)

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Cute

Day Care

This fortnight at CD Sundays the challenge is All Creatures Great and Small which of course sent me straight to the beautiful Design House CD, Meadow's Edge.

I decided to try one of the "side stacker with frame" image sheets. I'd not used one before and as you can see from the lower photo, it's a little bit strange as the outer edge of the frame waves about unsupported above the rest of the card. Maybe the intention is that you insert it, recessed, into an aperture card with the frame flush with the card, but that, of course, would leave you with the insert sticking out into the inside of the card.

Anyway, what it lacks in practicality it makes up for in prettiness! I've used one of the co-ordinating backing papers from the CD, plus the border and a tag from the image sheet and a die cut sentiment that just happens to fit the tag perfectly.

Sourdough "fattoush"

To begin with, apologies for the quality of the photo in this post, I hastily snapped it on my phone in rubbish light while I was in the middle of dishing up the meal.

When we go into any kind of Middle Eastern restaurant and order mezze style dishes, Fattoush is one of our must-haves. Yesterday I was putting together a fridge-and-freezer clearing meal of lamb kofte from the freezer, bulghur pilav, tsatziki and a tomato and cucumber salad, when I remembered the stump of sourdough bread in the bread bin. Not wanting to waste a crumb of the lovely bread, I decided to see if I could assemble something resembling fattoush which is normally made using flatbreads.

The version in the photo is rather bread-heavy, as we were very short of tomatoes and cucumber and only had half a shallot, but of course you can vary the proportions according to what you have available (and what you fancy). I didn't add any fresh herbs simply because we had none, but parsley, mint and coriander would all be delicious in this.

Ingredients

2 slices stale sourdough bread
¼ cucumber, diced
a handful of baby plum tomatoes, halved, or use larger tomatoes and chop them
½ a torpedo shallot, finely chopped, or a few slices of red onion
1 tsp dried mint
juice of 1 lemon
4 tbs olive oil

Heat the oven to a low to moderate heat - about 160 C, 325 F gas 3. place the bread on a baking tray and cook for around 10 minutes, turning once, until dry and crisp and beginning to brown. Break and tear into bite sized chunks and allow to cool.

Place the bread in a mixing bowl with the cucumber, tomatoes and shallots/onions, sprinkle over the dried mint and mix well.

Stir in the lemon juice and then the oil, mix well and leave to stand for around 30 minutes to allow the bread to absorb the dressing, stirring occasionally,

If you are adding fresh herbs, add them immediately before serving.

The lemon and oil dressing seems to emphasise the natural chewiness of the sourdough, making this a substantial and satisfying side dish.

I'm sharing this with the No Waste Food Challenge at Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

A sprinkling of fairy dust

Today I'm heading over to the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, where the new challenge is L for Legend.  Not just ancient Greek or Norse legends, but any kind of mythical or magical creature. So I decided to go for fairies, and printed out some papers, decoupage and a background from the La Pashe "Gnomes and fairies" CD to use with a stamped sentiment from one of the wonderfully snarky Dylusions sentiment sheets - this one is from "Say it how it is".

When the CD came out, a couple of years ago, La Pashe brought out special aperture cards to go with the decoupage, but I didn't get any. They had windows in the first two panels, instead of just the middle one, and a double score about 3mm apart for each fold. The idea is that the decoupage is double sided, so by adhering the acetate behind the centre panel, which becomes the front of the card, then using foam pads to attach the reverse panel to it, there could be decoupage on the BACK of the image while still allowing the card to close.

Anyway, since I had none, I rummaged through my stash and found one that had the double score lines but a closed in end panel, so I had to butcher it a bit to create the right effect. Hence any failure of edges to line up is entirely my fault.

THIS is why she looks so happy!

Stencilling again

You may remember that I recently combined stencilling with a stamped dragonfly in a CAS card, well, I liked the effect so much that I decided to play around with it again, this time going even more CAS and making a one layer card.

This time I stencilled directly onto the card using a Brilliance pad in Pearlescent Orchid, then overstamped it with the moth (a very old stamp from my collection - I think it came from the now-defunct Graphicus range although I believe another brand now produces the same image) and the sentiment (a magazine freebie) using Versafine in Smoky Grey. Some pink gems completed the look.

I am sharing this with:

CAS on Sunday - Stencil it
Creative Card Crew - CAS
Inkspirational - Pink & Grey
  

Teenage Kicks at Cardz 4 Guyz

It's time for our new challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz, and this week Julie has chosen Teenage Kicks.

I decided to take the theme very literally, with this martial art (I'm not sure WHICH martial art) themed pyramage topper and matching backing paper from the La Pashe CD "Something for Everyone". I've added an embellishment from the bargain bag I got at the Make It show. I think if you squint really hard, you might see that one of the participants could be a girl, but it's a popular sport with teenage boys and I think the bold background paper and strong red and black layers give the whole card a very masculine appearance.

We'd love it if you were to pop over to Cardz 4 Guyz and share YOUR take on the theme with us!

I'm sharing this with

Craft Your Passion Challenge - Anything Goes
Glitter 'n' Sparkle - Anything Goes
A Bit More Time To Craft - Anything Goes  

Unchained Melody

I'm not a film fan - it's 10 years since I last went to the cinema and probably almost as long since I watched a film on TV without getting bored and switching off after the first 10 minutes - I'd rather read a story in a book than watch it on a screen - so I was really REALLY challenged by this month's Naughty or Nice Challenge, which is At The Movies

However I printed out this Wrinklies recreation of the famous scene from Ghost decoupage from the CD "The best of La Pashe 2014" - and then spent a week wondering what the heck to do with it.

While picking out a paper for another project, I realised an old K & Company 12 x 12 pad had a sheet with a vintage movie theme, and at last things started to come together.

I used a 20cm square card. The background is a square of the paper, overstamped with the words "Movie star" at random. I fussy-cut the projector, film, tickets and popcorn sign from the paper and used them to finish the card once the decoupage was in place.

Whether this is naughty or nice depends on a couple of things - whether or not you see any symbolism in that pillar of clay drooping over like that, and whether, when watching the original film, you found That Scene rather *ahem* stimulating, or you couldn't really see it properly through your tears.

Vintage Santa

The current challenge at Jungle Belles is Spirit of Christmas Past so they want cards with a vintage feel about them. For me, Vintage Christmas always conjures up images of Victorian times, so I used papers from the 2013 Christmas Special issue of Making Cards, called Victorian Christmas. The images and papers are also available on Joanna Sheen's Victorian Christmas CD-ROM.

To add to the vintage feel, I've added lace, ribbon and doilies, and introduced some gold into the layering.

Poles apart!

The image I've used on this card is a pre-printed outline image from Craftwork cards, that has been sitting unloved in my Christmas Snippets box for years, for two reasons:

1. Polar bears and penguins are quite literally poles apart - polar bears live at the North Pole (well, in the general area of it) and penguins at the South Pole (ditto) and the two could never meet in the wild. So Christmas images showing both at once annoy me!
2. That penguin has such a blimmin miserable look on its face! How could I make a happy card with such a doleful penguin on it?

Anyway, both those reasons for not having used it are PERFECT reasons for pairing it with this fun sentiment, from a Dylusions sentiment stamp set. And my snippets box also contained half a sheet of mistletoe backing paper - serendipity!

I coloured the image with Promarkers, and you probably can't see it but I added Wink of Stella to the bear. The sparkly green braid also came from my Snippets box, and I finished it off with a scattering of snowflakes, I chose red, partly to match the red in the image and matting, but mainly because if a penguin and a polar bear can meet up in an ice cave, snowflakes can be red, right?

I'm sharing this with

Winter Wonderland - Penguins
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Cute
52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Funny Sentiment  
Pixies Snippets Playground - Week 221

It's bean a long time!

Here's a very quick and CAS stamp made with one of my current favourite stamps sets, Hero Arts Grow Your Own Salad.

I love that sentiment coupled with the bean pods!

I know lots of you also read my husband's blog, Mark's Veg Plot so you'll know that our small garden is almost completely dedicated to growing vegetables, so in the summer the view from our window always includes beans - broad beans, runner beans, green beans and more. And the challenge at Less is More this week is "What's outside your window" so this fits perfectly.

I stamped the sentiment and  beans, and then doodled in the vine, grass and earth with very fine markers, so I am also entering ATCAS - Delicate and CASology - Doodle.

Pears and blue cheese on toast

I'm having a bit of a posting binge today - it seems to be feast or famine with me! And it occurred to me that I've STILL not got back into the habit of posting about food, so here's a baby  step in the right direction.

Back in the 1970s, when I was at University and in the Officers Training Corps,  formal dinners often ended with a course called the Savoury, a very small savoury dish that was often intensely salty. Anchovies and anchovy paste used to figure a lot in them, as did bacon and strong cheeses. The salty ingredients were often combined with fruit, for instance bacon wrapped around prunes (I can't remember whether they were angels on horseback or devils on horseback, one used prunes and the other kidneys).

Really the only vestige of that left now is cheese and biscuits, but there is one simple savoury that Mark and I still like to end a meal with from time to time. We don't eat it in tiny canapé sized portions though, because we have it  instead of dessert rather than as well as it - Pears and Blue Cheese on Toast.

For two people, you will need:
2 small or 1 large (halved) slices of fruit bread - I used home made "hot cross bun loaf" which is simply made by sticking all the ingredients I would use to make hot cross buns in the bread machine and cooking on a normal cycle.
1 ripe, but not over-ripe, pear
about 70g Danish Blue cheese, sliced. You could use any blue cheese, but the strong saltiness of Danish Blue teams well with the sweetness of the pear.

Toast the bread under the grill on one side only.
Peel and slice the pear and arrange the slices over the untoasted side of the bread. Top with the cheese and return to the grill. Cook until the cheese is melted and bubbling and any exposed bread is toasted.

Serve as a savoury or with a green salad as a light lunch.

Bright flowers

I've been itching to get my hands on the new texture stamp set from The Gentleman Crafter and was delighted when they arrived this week. One of his suggested uses for them is to add interest to die cut flowers, and that's what I've been trying with this card. After cutting, I stamped over each one in pale grey ink, using the round Rough Shader stamp then stamped the large Stippler over that in white ink.

I used the Edger stamp along the bottom of the card to look like foliage and then added ribbons from my huge bag of ribbon oddments to match the die cuts. The flowers are die cut with the Spellbinders Jewel Flowers dies and the leaves with Spellbinders Sprigs

I am sharing this with

Crafting Musketeers - Use three ribbons
Use Your Stuff - Flowers and More Flowers 
Dies R Us - Handmade Flowers

A bit girlie for me!

I don't really make much in the way of girlie cards, but I do like to join in the Sparkles Monthly challenges and this month the theme is Make It Girly. I have some rather girly digis that I won in a blog challenge, so I printed this one out.

When I had problems colouring digis with Promarkers, somebody suggested watercolouring them so I coloured this one in with watercolour pencils and a wet brush. There was no bleeding, but I think you can tell from the photo that the image buckled slightly, so next time I will try putting watercolour paper through the printer.

Lots of pretty papers from my stash and a wooden butterfly .... job done.

I'm sharing this with

Sparkles Monthly Challenge - Make it Girlie
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge - March
Fab n Funky - Spots and Stripes

Lucky cat?

I'm not sure which of the characters on this card the Good Luck wish is for - the cat, whistling away innocently before he pounces on the mouse, or the mouse who is tiptoeing away, hoping to make his escape while the cat's attention is distracted by the sentiment!

I computer generated the sentiment, having found to my amazement that I don't possess a single Good Luck stamp (ooh, an excuse for some shopping!) and then stamped the cat and mouse using images from Katzelkraft's Les Chats Russes sheet. I coloured them in with Promarkers - I wanted to make a ginger cat this time to contrast with the green lettering and die cut. The tiny paw print is a very old unmounted stamp, its origins are lost in the depths of history.

I am sharing this with

Make My Monday - Lucky
Show us your pussies - Lucky Kitty
Crafty Gals Corner - Show me some green

Shoes at Twofers

As many of you have probably realised, I'm not the most girly of girls and I don't share the passion for crafting with shoe images that many people enjoy. In fact when Christi chose her topic for our new challenge at Twofers, I panicked and thought I had nothing suitable. But a rummage around my stash produced these die cut heels, the remnants of an ancient Kanban kit I bought from QVC,  a small shoe silhouette stamp and this super snarky sentiment from one of the wonderful Dylusions sets - this set is called "Say it how it is". I needed something to pull all the elements together, and I thought of this stamp, which I've hardly ever used, of two ladies sharing afternoon tea. Now, are they being really unkind to each other, or are they such good friends that one of them is teasing the other for giving the waiter a lascivious look?

 

To go with the die cut shoes, I used copper ink and embossing powder for all the stamping and then coloured in a few parts of the ladies' outfits by blending copper pearl pigment powder with a little water and painting it on with a fine brush.

 

Now why don't you pop over to Twofers and see what Christi and Zoe have created - and why not link up your own shoe themed creation too? You never know, you might win a prize of a $20 Alleystamps voucher.  Remember we only need to see one item, and there must be some stamping somewhere on it, and no digis. I'm looking forward to seeing what you share with us!

 



 

Two of a kind

The current phase of my ongoing decluttering is sorting through old craft magazines, making projects inspired by those that inspire me, trying techniques that are new to me and then giving away or recycling the mags, depending on their condition. So these two cards are inspired by an article in the July 2013 issue of Making Cards magazine.

I've used all sorts of bits and pieces on them - a lovely butterfly paper that came in a RAK some years ago, papers from a Craftwork Cards goodie bag and a K & Company 6x6 pad both of which are many years old, my old faithful Cuttlebug butterfly die, a Spellbinders butterfly die, the beautiful Butterfly Garden die that I recently won in the Snippets Playground, scraps of ribbon, gems, stamps, border punches..... it really was time to get everything out to play!

I have to confess though that while making them I made the classic boo-boo on one of them, I stuck the front panel on upside down. But before cutting it off and attaching it the right way up to a new card, I had the presence of mind to grab my phone and take a snap. Why? Because on April 1st, the lovely Darnell is going to be holding a one-day-only event for us to link up our card boo-boos. A sort of April Foolishness event. So do please dig out photos of your boo-boos ready to join in on the day - you can read more about it over on Darnell's blog.



Anyway, enough about what went wrong, let's have a look at the finished cards.

 

I am sharing these with:

Craft Rocket Challenges - Anything Goes
Clear It Out Challenge - Patterned paper over a year old
Alphabet Challenge - B for Beautiful Butterflies
Fab 'n' Funky - Spots and stripes   

Something else to play with!

OK, there's no card in this post, neither is there a recipe, but I've just got all excited about a piece of rubbish! My husband has just received a parcel, and instead of the usual bubble wrap or bits of polystyrene, the goods were protected by a piece of brown paper that had been cut all over into tiny slots and then opened out, like lattice pastry.

Just think of the possibilities that presents! I'm picturing inking it, stamping on it, stencilling through it, using it as an embellishment, even cutting bows from it.....

Graphic 45 pop up card

This is a card that I made for my mother, using papers from the Graphic 45 "Artisan style" collection.

For the pop up inside, I trimmed cream card to slightly smaller than the A5 outer card and scored the centre fold, then measured the peacock panel and the border strip I've used on the tiny upright piece, and marked a line each side of the centre so the panel would fit between the lines. I scored between the pencil lines where the bottom of the panel would come to, and the same distance above the centre, then scored again the width of the border above and below each score line. Then I cut the pencil lines from the bottom score line to the top one. Finally I scored 5cm each side of the central line to make the side steps. It all sounds a bit of a faff, but when you have the papers there to guide you it seems a lot more logical!

I've balanced the dragonfly panel in roughly the place it was going to go, because I wanted to write a personal greeting before sticking it in place. It would have been far too fiddly to write when it was stuck down!

Another make with my new stamps

Hello again - today I'm sharing with you another card I made using stamps from my Mothers Day present. This time I used the Water Wall stamp from Katzelkraft along with a very grumpy looking cat from the Les Chats Russes sheet.

I stamped the cat, coloured him with Promarkers and fussy-cut him. Then I covered the aperture panel of a tri-fold aperture card with brick effect paper (printed out from the CD The Best of la Pashe 2012) and stuck behind the aperture a piece of acetate on which I had stamped the water wall with black Staz-on.

The curtains are scraps of real fabric which I stuck down above and to the side of the aperture, using a little ribbon for "tie-backs".

On the inside of the flap that folds inwards, I covered the page with wallpaper print paper from a V&A paper pad, then positioned some woodgrain paper horizontally to make a window ledge for the cat to sit on, stuck the cat in place so that he was framed by the curtains, and then stuck the fold-ver panel down with high-tack double sided tape - because of the fabric and the number of layers, it was quite bulky and I don't think standard tape would have held it in place.

I just love the miserable look on his face - I think we all look like that when we want to be outside but there's rain lashing against the windows!

Speed at Cardz 4 Guyz

This week's challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz is Speed. This could, of course, be anything fast from a motorcycle to a cheetah, but I love to watch motor racing so I went for a motor racing theme - with a twist!

I've used the "Full Throttle" decoupage sheet from the CD "The best of La Pashe 2012" along with the red speedometer background, provided on the decoupage sheet, and a chequered flag background printed from La pashe's "Something for Everybody" CD. The sentiments are from the decoupage sheet and the embellishment came from the bargain goodie bag I got at the Make It Show.

I love the details on this picture - the gentleman has just been shopping and has his mobility scooter flying along at top speed so he can get home to enjoy his wine, bananas and newspaper! I see that it's a pink newspaper. Does that mean he's a Financial Times reader? Or is there still a newspaper called the Sporting Pink? I think he looks more of an FT type to me.

The Christmas Jumper

I always laugh when I see this image, from the La Pashe CD "The Wrinklies at Christmas"  - this rosy cheeked old gentleman seems very happy with his oversized Christmas Jumper, but that may have something to do with the empty wine bottle by the side of his chair!

The background is embossed to give a knitting style effect, using a Crafters Companion embossing folder, and I've used twine to attach a little "hank of yarn" charm, which I think was a magazine free gift.

I am sharing this with

Winter Wonderland - use a charm
Christmas Card Challenges - Anything Goes
Glitter and Sparkle - Use some Green

Third time lucky!

When I first started making CAS cards, I found it a real struggle, and often shared the things that had gone wrong in my posts. I've gradually come to regard CAS as one of my favourite styles, and have far fewer disasters now, but even so, things don't always go according to plan.

For this card, I wanted to use one of the pair of sentiment stamps that I won recently in the Snippets Playground. Both are about sunshine, so my plan was to use a die cut negative to sponge a sunshine in one corner of the card and then stamp the sentiment further down the card.

So off I went, masking off the edges of the card and sponging the sunshine in Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade DI. I removed the die cut and started to sponge in a few rays, but I dabbed the sponge a bit too hard on the inkpad and......... BLOB

I'll save that - the fiery sunshine might make a good background for a space rocket themed card.

I started again and this time was MUCH more careful with my ink. I sponged a little green along the bottom for grass, and stamped one of the sentiments above it, and finished it with a couple of stylised dragonflies using a Rubberstamp Tapestry stamp.

Much more successful, but a touch wishy washy. The sentiment is in quite a delicate script that looks unbalanced against the bold sunshine, and the "ground" looks out of place. Also I think the sentiment is too low down.

Back to the drawing board, but this time I used the second sentiment on the sheet, which is in a much bolder style, and opened my new set of abstract stamps from The Gentleman Crafter, using the brush stroke oval to create a grassy border and adding tiny dots of colour for flowers. A much bolder dragonfly, from an Indigo Blu set, highlighted with a trace of Stickles, finished the scene. At last, I was happy!

And now the card is finished, I am sharing it with

Less is More - One layer, sentiment as main focus
Crafty Creations - Sentiment as focal point