My Card Boo-Boo

Today being April Fool's Day,  Darnell over at DJKardKreations  wants to see the times we've made a fool of OURSELVES when making a card - the ones that went wrong. She's having a one day only challenge where we can share our bloopers.

I hope I'm actually going to get chance to be around to link my own card to it, because today is a Very Big Day in the Willis household, it's going to be my husband's first day of retirement, and we have exciting plans for the day that don't really involve me sitting here blogging (I wrote this earlier in the week). But on the other hand he'll probably find he has umpteen phone calls to make in order to Make It Official and I'll be left twiddling my thumbs.....

Now I don't know about you, but when I make a card and things go wrong, I dismantle it and start again - I don't stop and take a photo of it first. So I had to think long and hard about what to share.

Only in the last few days, I made the classic mistake of sticking the front panel on to a card upside down, and had to remove it and start again.....

 

It was to be a tent fold card, and as you can see, the butterflies would have all appeared to be dive bombing the table.

But Darnell is really looking for completed cards, ones where you didn't realise until you'd finished that there is a blooper on it. I didn't think I had one, and then the other day I finished a card for a future Twofers DT project. 

I was trying to give this card a masculine feel, so I decided to use a dark brown button as the embellishment on the ribbon wrap.

When I first finished it, I was really pleased with it, but when my husband saw it he said "That button spoils it". I got a second opinion from a couple of friends, both of whom agreed with him. So I slept on it (not literally, of course, that would have creased it) and next day I looked again and thought "That button spoils it". And it does, it's too big, too heavy, makes the card look as if it is about to topple over to the right, and doesn't link in with anything else in the design.

So I had to remove the button - have you any idea how strong Pinflair glue is? - and rescue it.

Do you want to see the rescued card? Well, I'm afraid you have a very long wait because I'm not sharing it until May 21st. APRIL FOOL!

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