52 Weeks of Crafting

So these cards are totally different but I made them at the same time and decided it would be fun to blog about them both at the same time.

The Hamilton card is for a colleague (and friend) turning 30 who - like me - is obsessed with the musical. We listen at work, discuss the characters, compare London and Broadway cast members...we're totally nuts for it. I decided too get out the scalpel and do a bit of paper cutting for the figure on top, then added the star die beneath. The background is blended using Distress Oxides as I wanted the same aged effect as the famous poster.


This congrats card is completely different! I used a great pattern paper and die cut a small square. I created a ring out of glitter stock using two different circle dies and added my mega bling on top. That is actually a rhinestone from a necklace that broke so it looks a bit rough in person but I liked the effect. The congrats sticker is from a big pack I got at Hema.

I had so much fun making them and as they're both for personal friends I'm sure they'll be thrilled with them as well.

A colleague asked if I would make a card as a thank you for a weekend stay in the country. Specifically they wanted a card that was country-inspired without featuring too many flowers or animals.

The headline card was the one inspired by the brief. I used two magazine freebies to create the tree and fence scene which I heat embossed in black. I blended the background after die cutting the rectangle to make it a bit more atmospheric, I added the sentiment and birds using dye ink instead of embossing as I wanted the textures to be different. The touch of string was to add texture though truthfully I don't love it now!

This was another card I was just playing around with on my desk and it doesn't really work with the brief (too flowery) but I do like the simplicity. I die cut the tree and used distress ink to get the color and texture. I added these sweet little flowers that I got at Michael's just after christmas. I was going to add them to a square but decided the hexagon was a bit more modern. The thank you is also a magazine freebie.

A fun little session and a good mid-week brief.

My buddy Dave at work always asks me to make him funny cards for his family. He asked me to make his girlfriend a fox card and his dad a train card.

For absolutely no reason, I decided to make the fox card a shaker. I just thought, why not? I haven't made a shaker in a while, this will be fun! And then I saw that CAS-UAL Fridays was hosting a shaker challenge so that confirmed my commitment.

Plus, while it looks simple, there are about 6 uses of dies on this card (the background square with circle removed, the acetate circle, the scallop with the ring cut out, the foam ring) so I'm entering the CAS On Sunday challenge of 'Use a Die'.

I colored a Unity Co stamp directly on the card blank and then die cut a piece of paper around it. I die cut a foam ring in red to hold the sequins and then layered on top a scalloped circle with a die cut out as a frame. I added a hand drawn border and a little printed tag that Claire had given me as a sentiment. Really pleased with it as I struggle with shakers and I was patient enough to wait for all the glue to dry on the foam and the lid before shaking it so I didn't get the sequins stuck around the edges like usual!




Now for the train. I tried my hand a paper cutting one from sight and it came out a bit sloppy and un-train-like. So I cheated a bit, printed out a train image, glued it to a black card and then cut it out as a stencil and then flipped it over. Still, I had to do it by hand so I think it's ok! The paper is an ancient one from my stash (I think it's Recollections a few years ago). I cut the tag and used Distress Inks to blend over it to give it the vintage leather feel. The stamp is a really new one from Paper Source (I indulged when I went to the US recently!) and I think it may be it's inaugural use. I added some black bling and a gold glitter dot for the train's light.

Really happy with both of them and can't wait to give them to my colleague.

A colleague remembered her 5 year anniversary a bit late in the day - specifically it was 6:15 on a Wednesday for her anniversary on Thursday!

She was in a fast-paced brainstorm, listing things about their relationship and dates and we were trying to come up with gift ideas. She mentioned their first date was surfing and involved tequila shots on the beach and I thought: that would make a great card.

I started by paper cutting a surfer and surf board in black paper, then cut out my shot glasses and limes. I added glitter glue to represent the tequila and added white gel pen to the limes. I watercolored using Distress Inks to get the sunset and beach motif. The sentiment is die cut using white stock and I split it over the background and kraft card blank.

My colleague was really tickled by it so I'm pleased it worked out.

My friend asked me to make a card with a lot of fun little details. She asked me to have someone doing yoga and then asked me to do something to hint at how she is about to be a grandmother.

I researched different yoga poses and found Ego Eradicator, an energy pose that felt perfect. I cut it by hand as a silhouette. I put four hearts, as she has four kids, and inside is a smaller heart growing inside.

I die cut the sentiment in purple and layered it over the same teal paper.

No bling, no sequins, just simple paper shapes. I love it and think it fits the brief really well.

Two of my colleagues asked for very specific mother's day cards this year and, as ever, I like to do something a bit different with a personalized brief. Both are papercut because I thought it was the best way to meet their specific needs.

The headline card was made for a friend whose mother is an Egyptologist. In real life! He said that we should go for a good old fashioned mummy gag and asked for the sentiment specifically. The rest was up to me. I decided that, since this is one of the oldes puns in the book, I would go for a really modern look. I made a mummy shape and then wrapped it in strips of white paper. Harder than it looks, I should mention! I then die cut the sentiment in purple to introduce some color. Finally I added the bling strips just to make it a tiny bit more feminine. Weird twist on the old gag, I hope he likes it.



This card was commissioned by a colleague who said her mum is setting up her own yoga business and wanted to show her taking on the world. I cut out a silhouette of the downward dog position and then cut out some green countries for my globe. The countries were so much harder than the person, honestly I am never paper cutting a globe again. They're not nearly good enough for how much effort and redoing it involved! I layered these over some cloud-patterned vellum, I'm loving this at the moment and have used it several times recently. I tried a version with a sentiment, sent pics to my colleague and we both agreed blank was best.

Really happy with the final products and how different these are from anything else I've ever made for Mother's Day!

Back in September I bought this little die set of kites and clouds - it was a Lawn Fawn set that is meant to complement a set of stamps. But the stamps were sold out so the dies were half price. I thought they were shapes that would stand alone ok so I finally decided to test this theory.

I pulled a bunch of scraps out of my scrap folder and went to town. I decided to go for the black card base to make these pop even more and I think they look a bit more modern that way. The little 'thanks' strip die is from Sizzix for Stamping' Up.

Super simple, easy use of scraps and very cheery. Not sure why I was so intimidated by these before, they are a win.

No challenge today, just for fun!

A double trouble post for you following a fun playdate with Mrs G. We decided to use Pinterest as our inspiration as we haven't dug into our boards for a while and we shortlisted a few cards to CASE. It was wicked fun and these are two of the outputs.

The first one was based on this card featuring a technique that had you blend a strip and stamp over it with a texture stamp faintly, followed by a silhouette in black and a greeting. I made so many mistakes. Just so many. I messed up my masking (twice) I messed up the texture stamp (once) and decided, finally to abandon the official inspiration and just do it modified to what I was capable of at that moment. Sheesh. So much work for a card that looks so simple! But it's pretty and I like the final result. We decided the butterfly was too much and left it as is.

The blended inks are all Distress inks, the stamp is a wooden block from Claire, accented with a tiny bunch of flowers from a nautical set that I think is a Marshalls sale. The greeting is a lovely new one from Unity Stamps that I've used a few times, I think it's a wonderful sentiment.

And yes - full disclosure - I cheated and cut out the blended bit and mounted it on white because I messed up again. Honestly.


This next one was a fun make, and it's a great layout based on this card. Three strips (all based on scraps) and then a diecut sentiment in the middle. The plain papers are just from my stash and the yellow pattern is Studio Callico. Maybe the colors are inspired by the card above? Who could say. The white greeting is an offcut from a card gone wrong (see above) and the die is from Stampin Up. The sequins and gems are a mix from my stash. Super CAS and fun.

This stamp is from Little Claire and I've had it for at least a year or two yet I've never been able to really use it that well. As I've gotten more confident with blending and heat embossing I decided to give it another go and was really pleased with the resutl.

The background was blended with Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed and Spiced Maramlade Distress Inks. The stamp was embossed using black embossing powder and the greeting is from a sentiment set Claire bought me years ago.

I trimmed down a black card blank to make it a bit more propotional and I'm pleased with it. It looks simple but I know that I couldn't have gotten the cleanness right without months of embossing practice. A triumph I think!

Claire introduced me to a new technique using a blending tool and I am IN LOVE. It is a great technique to get colors and texture and all sorts of fun. So I decided to play with it using three strips I made with Claire and one I made after I raided Amazon and bought all the stuff for myself.

The headline is a card I made tonight using one of the scraps from my first blending attempt with Claire. She also gave me this stamp great stamp and I tried a new black embossing powder to make it stand out. The black speckled a bit so I decided to embrace it and I did a splatter using a iced spruce Distress Ink. I love it. I added two scraps, the green and the red to get a border across the middle and added green twine for an extra earthy texture. The pearls and candy make it a bit more polished. I really liked the roughness with all the technique. A win.


This card is amazing - if I do say so myself. I blended two colors and added two stamps from a free magazine set that I got. The black embossing powder comes out again for a silhouette that I love. I added a Martha Stewart punched border and some purple and blue pearls. The sentiment is for my sister's in-laws, they lost my BIL's grandfather this week and I thought this card would be a nice way to show I was thinking of them.


This card uses the same free card set as above, just a different dragonfly. The card came together organically - the blue paper was on the desk already, the tag was already embossed (for another project that didn't work out) and when I made a little mistake with a slip of the stamp, I took a spotted stamp from a Stampin' Up stamp set and I think it really made the whole card. It's all dotty and fun now. The stitched die is from Claire's collection and that she brought with her.


Finally this card is a great thing featuring new stamps Claire brought with her. This was my first blending tool attempt and I thought it worked well with this backing paper from Studio Callico. The greeting is great, isn't it? Such a simple layout but so sweet. The blending works so well to give it a bit of extra pizaaz.

Great technique and I can't wait to play with it more...now that I have all my own stuff!

I got a wonderful commission from a colleague to make her mother a card with a heron for UK Mother's Day. She said her mom was really spiritual and that it was a symbolic animal that she liked to include wherever she could.

I accepted the commission knowing I didn't have a stamp or anything that could work out of the box and went to my favorite (and underused) technique of paper cutting. It's been ages since I've done it properly and even though this was a small scale I embraced it.

I looked up images of herons and drew a silhouette on black card stock, using my Fiskars finger blade to cut it out.

The sun is a diecut circle that I used Gelatos and a watercolor pen to get that beautiful streaky result.

The silver water is a scrap I had on my desk as are the blue waves - in fact everything but the sun is a scrap as the black was leftover as well from another project - and the waves were the off cut of a scallop punch. I saw that recently on a YouTube tutorial and had my mind blown. So simple. So effective.

I asked my colleague if she wanted a greeting or sentiment but she liked the simplicity of it and I agreed - so nice it's like a mini art piece.

Very happy with this result, hoping to have a happy colleague as well!

This week at Moving Along with the Times we are hosted by Claire and she's got a sketch for us to play along with:


The headline is my take on the layout. I recently rediscovered these cameo dies and thought it would be fun to play with them on this challenge using modern colors and patterns.

I used a decorative nesting label die for the central feature and did two layers in beige and chevron. The cameo is cut out of a dark brown paper that I also used for the border punch, a Martha Stewart one that is a favorite of mine. The green spotted paper and chevron paper are both from the Neopolitan Recollections pack from Michael's.

The beige ribbon is actually covering an oops moment - I smeared some ink from a completely different card on the green paper and thought I'd see if I could hide it rather than start over - successful I think!

The little beige pearls were added for texture as were the little brown spotted candies. I really enjoyed digging out these dies - sometimes a layout challenge causes you to rethink your kit and I hope you find it does the same for you this week!

When I saw the colors at Color Throwdown this week I had to give it a go. These are the colors this week:

 
I have been harbouring this elephant stamp from Little Claire for a few months now and every time I've gone to use it I've been stumped and not sure what to do. This week, a friend asked if I would make her a bunch of cards and she likes things fresh, fun and modern and so I decided to shake off the cobwebs and give this little stamp another go.

Gosh was I glad I did.

I was inspired by the DT at Color Throwdown and how some of them use big block colors in their cards. So I decided to try the stamp against three plain color strips. It's a bit faint but I really like the output and will definitely try it agin.

I framed the three colors on black to give it a stronger base and then stamped directly on the panels.

I added minimal embellishment, just three yellow stars on the gold panel and three blue stars on the blue one. I then centred the sentiment and added a small green bling either side.

Clean, simple and super modern.

I have been following Claire's submissions to What's on your workdesk Wednesday for months, and I have always wanted to enter. But I never had a workstation! Whenever I wanted to craft I would get my little buckets, boxes and bags of craft things and sit on the floor, or couch, or table and make the thing and then clear it all away. For years this is how I did it.

When we moved into our condo recently I asked (nay, insisted) that I have a craft desk in our spare bedroom and here I am, finally ready to play along!

So my headline photo is my long-awaited desk. I have my ProMarkers in little cups (until I work out my long term solution), two little plastic caddies full of bits and bobs, a pencil container, cutting mat, ATG just out of shot, and then the interesteing bits: some paper scraps, some Little Claire stamps I'm coloring in and then the sample of papers that come with the Little Clair subscription Claire subscribed me to for my birthday.

I wanted to share the rest of my little craft station as well as I'm just so excited:


To the left is my wall sticker, my paper storage unit, paper cutter and bit box of bling. To the right is a shelving unit that has everything that doesn't fit in the desk: stamps, inks, ribbons, bows and other tools. It's the first time I've ever had an area that is really my own and I'm excited to have done a few projects there already.

I thought I would share the first card I made after assembling my desk last week, a card my colleague commissioned for her neighbor's baby shower. Her neighbor, I should mention, is a professional dancer from the UK's version of Dancing with the Stars - I've purposely not put her name in this as my friend didn't want my blog to get picked up by search before the shower - but afterwards I'm definitely going to ask her to get a picture of her holding the card. My first celebrity endoresment!

The brief was to make it as blingy and fabulous as possible and so when I was in doubt, I added more bling. Purple leopard paper is from Claire, the flowers are from a Papermania collection and the image is one I've used before, on a previous "Knocked up" and fabulous card.

All in all, I'm so excited to be a part of the WOYWW crew, can't wait to have a nosy around your workstations! xJT

Back to my friend Hannah. This is the second card that was commissioned when I posted yesterday's card. The brief was roughly to make a "congrats your knocked up card" that wasn't too soppy. I won't use the words she described the lucky lady but they ended in ...-show. Which is a fun brief. Han is good for a fun brief.

So I made the card above. It's modern, it's not cutesy, it celebrates the woman, not the baby. I hope the colors are ok, I didn't really get a steer on that. But I think it's fabulous.

I used my nesting die scallops to get the layers. To make it more textured I embossed the bottom layer and then used that to make the banner. The centre image is some free clipart I found online.


I used the block letter stamps I have to spell out the greeting - I love the effect. It's baby-ish yet because it doesn't say "new arrival" or something twee it still fits.

I love it. If she doesn't, I'll keep it and hope someone I know gets knocked up soon.

My friend Jules is getting married and is having an art deco theme with gold and silver accents. I was in a craft shop this week and found some papers that were perfect for making her a little set of thank you cards inspired by her wedding theme.

All of the cards used a black base (she's getting a gel pen as well so she can actually write in them) feature a small bit of glitter glue as a feature and some striped candies in white, grey or black. 

The headline card uses one of my favorite papers layered on top of some busy floral papers. I added to the layers with raised foam to give it more depth. Simple punched greeting and some dark grey candies. 


The next card uses a silhouette paper with a lattice cut of silver paper, pre-tied bow and white and silver candies. Since taking this photo I've evened out the spacing of the candies.


This is the only horizontal card in the set and used the same paper as the card above.   I used lacy tape and ribbon to split up the paper over a black and white floral pattern. The greeting here was a random sale bin purchase from my local craft store and usually it's a challenge to use but really worked in this set.


Next is a card that really simply layers grey and black papers with the image. I've scallop-punched the corner to give it some texture and added a few flowers for balance.


Finally this card used the same scallop punch in the corner as well as the full border punch in silver. I made the greeting black so it would stand out from the textured grey background. I added the spotted ribbon as well to make it a bit cute and hide the seam between the two papers.

These will go in the post tomorrow so hopefully Jules will get them soon! x

I wanted to make something a bit bigger this weekend as I’ve been making a lot of cards recently and my blog challenge was to try a variety of things. I saw this canvas project on Pinterest and thought I could make that. So I did.

I decided to try one first and then if I liked the technique I would do a bigger canvas or possibly a series of 2 or 3 to hang in a row.

All the materials were in my kit already, I just needed a canvas. I went to Wilkinsons to get one and found this one in the children’s art section for £1, about 20% of the price of the same canvas in the “adult” art section. Maybe I’ll get another one and colour in the lines for next week’s challenge. Does that count?

I followed the instructions on the site, covering the canvas in newspaper and then printing out a bird to get the silhouette, drawing on some branches and colouring everything in with a sharpie.

If I had some advice for next time (because I liked it enough to do a bigger one/series next time) it would be these points:

• Use a razor to cut out the bird – I started with scissors but it was a bit too delicate once covered in marker
• Use real Sharpies – not fakes – as the print-out colours on the bird came through and I had to go over the silhouette a few times
• Use spray mount on the newspaper and not glue or ModgePodge. I used spray mount and it made my life so much easier. I touched up the edges with normal craft glue but the spray mount was a joy.
• Use a fun part of the newspaper - I dug around until I found photos and maps to make ita bit more interesting. I should have used a different focal point than the Chancellor's budget briefcase.
• Clearly the quality of your printer doesn't matter as you just colour it all in black. Though I really should get a new printer cartridge.
  

I’ll let you know what silhouettes I go for next. I saw this similar project as well so I might try this one next…