Back crafting again!!

Well hello everyone and I apologies for being MIA yet again for what feels like forever. It is still school summer holidays here and so I've just had to given myself over to the boys and spend lots of days out with them. We are so very fortunate living just outside Edinburgh as not only do we have great places to go on our doorstep, we are just a 45 minute bus journey away to the city centre which is awash with lots of things to see and do. Especially just now, it is so vibrant due to the Edinburgh Festival. We popped in to town just the other day, took a trip on a tram out to another shopping area in order to do the dreaded last minute school uniform shopping, then returned to watch some of the festival acts. My oldest boy was quite taken by a band that were playing and told me that they were so good that they should be on the radio!! We even had an impromptu trip around an art gallery which I would never normally consider with my two, but we all needed to use the facilities and thought it was a bit rude not to at least have a bit of a wander around. I was so surprised that a 7 and a 3 year old could actually wander around, in silence, ACTUALLY looking at the pictures and talking about what they liked in whispers!! It is sometimes so lovely to do something unexpected like that and see things through children's eyes.

Another shock to both my husband and I was just how amazingly our boys did, camping in a tent the previous week. We went with my parents and sister who were also camping, up to the beautiful Highlands of Scotland and enjoyed a week together. I was not in any way, shape or form relaxing, but it was a great experience for the boys and we were treated to some gorgeous sunsets at night. In fact, here is one of them.

Anyhow, enough about me, the boys and our holiday….crafting time!! 

I am still not at all back to my usual crafting schedule and so it is still a bit ad hoc, whenever I can squeeze in the time, but I do have a new card to share with you. It is my Dad's Birthday today and so it was time to do what I fear above all…..make a masculine card. Does anybody else have this issue? The prospect of it scares me every time and my lovely husband bought me something that thought would help me with this - a lovely pack of masculine Designer Paper. It is the Heritage collection by Papermania and it contains lots of lovely designs. Here is is below….

As you can see, lots of checks, tartans, patterns etc etc. There should be lots of ideas jumping out at me??? I just utterly drew a blank. Any rough ideas I had just seemed to be dull and just really blah. I ended up looking at the do crafts website who give you inspiration for the pack….but I have to admit that none of them were my style at all. They combined lots of the patterns together and were all quite dark and really busy. Just not my style at all.

I began looking through my stamps to see if there were any that might give some further inspiration and I stumbled across this one I had bought from Hobbycraft but never used yet.

Isn't he sooo cute!!! He is a Scottish Highland Terrier, known here as a 'Scotty Dog.' I decided he would look perfect paper pierced using the tartan paper and checked paper for his collar. 

I stamped him on the reverse of the patterned paper and then cut him out, ready to be attached to the backing card using foam adhesive. I decided Kraft card would give more of a masculine feel. I added a small crystal for his eye and a dark grey pearl for his nose to give him a bit added interest. A stamped sentiment, some jute ribbon and a cut out banner from one of the other patterned papers and then I was finished!!

Voila…..

   

I know, I know - photos!!!! I am desperate to get back to taking my photos out in the summer house but it is horrific heavy rain and thunder here today and so we are all inside sheltering from it!! We have also just finished a card made by the boys which of course they wanted to stamp (think they love it just as much as me!!) although we did come across something 'not to do.' I was getting them to colour in the stamped images with my 'magic pencils' - watercolour pencils which I was aiming to wow them with when I turned the pencil into watercolour paints, but the boys had chosen Kraft card to stamp on….although the pencils coloured in the images okay, they just do not work when water is added. The kraft card just soaks in and makes a mess!!!!

We have spent the afternoon now making a birthday cake and also some cupcakes which we will eat ourselves tonight and also give to some to my two best friend's who also have their birthdays this coming weekend. 

Here are our other creations…….

Yummy!!!!!!

I am hoping to be blogging much more soon, with a lot more card creations to share but also some reviews of products I use etc too. Watch this space….only one and a half more weeks until my big boy goes back to school. I have to say, that after 6 weeks, I am SO ready for it!!!!!

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend and I will be back with more to share soon….including a Wedding Table plan!!!!!

Any comments, so very much appreciated xxxxxx

A Birthday Card for a friend, Uniko Studio Challenge 12 and Runway Inspired Challenge 64

Hello,

As you can see, I am on a roll with the blog posts tonight and I am also pretty impressed at doing a double whammy challenge!!

The Uniko Studio one this month is very handy as it's 'Anything Goes' and the Runway Inspired Challenge inspiration dress made me think of my Uniko Studio Pure Floral Chrysanthemum set straight away!! Sorted :-)

I have decided to do my blog post slightly differently this time, in that I have taken photos as I have gone along to let you see what I did. Please do let me know what you think of this.

The Runway Inspired Challenge gave this photo as inspiration

I knew straight away that I wanted to use vellum overlapping and I wanted to show my slightly neglected Spectrum Noir markers some loving!

I began by stamping an A5 sheet of white vellum with the large and small Chrysanthemum stamps with embossing ink and then heat set with silver EP. I repeated this with the leaves too. I did them in two steps like this in order to avoid double stamping or smudging.

I then began colouring the images on the back and front of the vellum - I found doing both gave a better depth of colour.

I then found a piece of lilac card….

which I adhered the vellum on to. I used some clear glue and ensured I used the back of the flowers as the glue sites in order to hide it somewhat.

I then cut the sheet using my paper cutter into 2cm wide strips

I decided that I wanted to make this a tag card and so I cut myself a 12cm x 7cm tag and used my xcut corner rounders on both it and the backing card 

I began randomly placing the strips over the tag, but my OCD couldn't cope with the non matching pattern this created and so I had to take them off and start by laying the strips in the correct order.

I then began attaching the strips to the tag, working bottom to top so they were overlapping downwards. I cut the bottom strip and rounded it's corners to ensure this was going to work.

I continued until all strips were added

These were then cut to the size of the tag and the top ones had the corners rounded.

At this point, I forgot to take update photos!! Bear with me as I explain the rest. I die cut and stamped/embossed in silver two small Chrysanthemums on to white card and then coloured one with the pink Spectrum Noir Pen and the other in the greyish/blue.

I added these to the bottom of the tag, overlapping the edge of the card. I added my Happy Birthday Sentiment on to a fussy cut out banner which was then adhered with foam pads over the flowers. A bit ribbon and a button were added to the top of the tag.

As far as I am concerned no card is complete without a bit of bling, so I added a few matching sequins.

Here is the end result.

I apologise for my lack of great photographs of late. I really need some during the day peace and quiet to get out to my summer house to do my 'proper' photos but with school holidays and two boys, this just isn't happening at the moment. Hopefully you can still get the gist of the cards anyway.

Thank you for looking, please let me know if the step by step (well, until I forgot) photographs are helpful and I promise to try and do this more often.

Laura xxx

Resources

Card - Smooth White - paper mill direct, Vellum - Anita's, lilac card from stash

Ink - Papermania Silver EP, Versafine Onxy Black, Spectrum Noir Markers

Stamps - Pure Florals:Chrysanthemums  - Uniko Studio, A Gift for You - Uniko Studio

Dies - Chrysanthemums - Uniko Studio

Embellishments - button & ribbon from stash, sequins - hobbycraft

Two new babies and CASology week 104

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were attending the 60th Birthday party of his twin uncles. While all the family were there, we received the wonderful news that another set of twins had joined the family! This time, it was my husband's cousin who had just become a double Daddy!!! A boy and a girl to join the ever expanding clan.

As soon as I knew the genders, it was time to set to work on creating a card for their arrival. I originally planned to do one card for both, but it ended up being easier to create one for each in the stereotypical blue and pink colours.

I had recently purchased a gorgeously cute teddy stamp and I wanted to use this.

I set to work on the little girl card first. As you will know, I have become a little too obsessed by shaker cards!! I really wanted to add a little bit of shaker and so created this as a heart shaped balloon. Another technique I wanted to try, was to do some paper piercing. I had some fab patterned paper that was dying to be used. I found some suitable for both cards.

Here is the little girl card -

And here is the little boy card which I am also entering in to Casology's challenge which is 'Pet'….pet teddy???

The little boy card was actually a lot less 'fussy' than the girl one, but I actually much prefer it. Simple, but cute.

Both teddies were given a little glossy accents on their noses in order to give them that little bit of something special.

I now need to get the cards posted as the babies are already 10 days old!!!!!!

Many thanks for looking. Any comments are so very much appreciated.

Laura xx

Resources
Card - White - Papermill Direct. Patterned Papers by Docrafts
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, Hobbycarft Blue, Versamagic Pixie Dust
Stamps - Teddy - Hobbycraft, It's a Boy & It's a Girl - Hobbycraft
Embellishments - Stars - Tesco, Sequins - Hobbycraft, Glossy Accents, Twine - Papermania

My 5th Wedding Anniversary and Freshly made sketches 145

Yesterday saw my lovely Husband and I married for 5 years. I can't quite believe it has been that long already. Time flies when you are having fun as they say. I ALWAYS struggle with making masculine cards and this time was no exception. I decided to take a look at some card challenge blogs for inspiration and I came across a layout on Freshly Made Sketches which caught my eye.

I have an amazing Art Deco Bride and Groom die that I love by Tattered Lace and I knew I wanted to use that on the card. I wanted to use some darker colour (black or navy) and I began thinking that perhaps the inside rectangle could be like looking through an window into the sky and the round circle could be the moon. I wanted to have the bride and groom set in to the circle so it looked as though it was behind them. To achieve this, I did cut the bride and groom from navy card and also die cut the top of them from the 'moon' too and set the die cut back in to the negative. Initially I put black behind to show through the bride and groom die cut, but this didn't look right at all. I then remembered that I had some dark blue glitter card (not masculine I know) and this just worked perfectly. It was time then to concentrate on the two side banners…..I decided I wanted these to stretch across the card and become the bride's veil. This problem was though, that the bride and groom are facing the wrong way for this. I decided just to roll with it anyway. I cut out the veil from vellum and embossed in silver a lace type pattern. I added these from the bride's hair. I couldn't resist then adding some crystals to the veil and to the dress (okay, so I strayed totally away from the masculine card!!). I added my Anniversary sentiments and viola - done. Know I know my card is not an exact match to the above sketch, but the fact is, I was totally inspired by the layout and used this in order to create my card. Surely that counts for something!!!

Here is the card I gave to my amazingly supportive, loving and truly amazing husband…..

I feel the perfect title for this card would be 'Dancing in the Moonlight.' I know it's hard to see, but I adore the detailing on the veil. 

Many thanks for looking and any comments are always so very much appreciated 

Laura xxx

Resources

Card: Navy Shimmer, White Shimmer, and Linen embossed card - Jelly Bean Crafts, Glitter card - Hobbycraft. 

Ink - Silver EP - Papermania

Dies - Bride and Groom Tattered Lace

Embellishment - Crystals by Anitas

Stamps - Happy Anniversary from Pure Florals Chrysanthemums - Uniko Studio. Husband from Relations - Papermania, Hobbycraft Damask Background stamp.

MIA

Well hello everyone!! I must apologise for being completely MIA for the past month. We are right in to school holidays at the moment and my crafting time is very limited. We have been so very fortunate with the weather meaning the boys have been quite happy so far to remain at home and play in the garden. This has allowed to me to have a little time to get on but this time is being used to attempt a bit of a clear out/clean up of the house. The schools go back on 20th August and then as of mid September, the littlest one will begin nursery 5 mornings a week. My grand plan is to keep a Monday as my cleaning day, Friday as my day to catch up with my other Mum friends and then this gives me Tuesday-Thursday mornings to devote to my card making and hopefully then selling. Up until that point, I am determined to get the house completely sorted from top to bottom - this is a huge task to achieve, especially when we have a week holiday away starting next weekend. If I just do a few tasks each day, I'll finally get through it all. Todays task was to try and find partners for a pile of odd socks!!!!

Anyway, back to my recent card making….I have been making cards on an 'as and when' basis just now. I have been sharing these on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/ledesignsboutique. I have had a 60th Birthday Party for twins, a Sister birthday card, a congratulations card, Baby cards for the birth of twins, and a birthday card for my friend. A few of these are going to be submitted for various card challenges. As you can see, I have still been crafting, but just for life and not for challenges and unfortunately, not for the blog!!!

Here are a few that I have to share anyway (photo taking is also awful just now as I've not had the time to do my usual set up)

60th Birthday cards for twins…

A Birthday card for my 17 year old Sister

A shaker Congratulations card for my Sister on being offered not one, but 2 jobs!! 

The other cards will be shared in a few posts….keep reading!

Laura xx

Guest Designer spot - Inkspirational Card Challenges

The sneak peek...

Good morning all and thank you so much for visiting my blog today. As you will see from the post title, today I am the Guest Designer over at Inkspirational Card Challenges.

As always, I was completely surprised to be announced as a top 3 winner with the card I made for my little Boy's 3rd Birthday as seen below, but even more shocked when I was chosen from the three to act as Guest Designer. I am honoured to be asked to do this, but I always find it rather daunting too. I always feel you have to create something truly spectacular to show yourself worthy of the opportunity.

When I was told the theme - blue with cream or white….I did initially panic at just how broad this theme was. However, I took a deep breath, got out my sketch book and began thinking of ideas to explore. Carol who is one of the designers at Inkspirational Card Challenges is a huge fan of shaker cards. This is something I have always wanted to try (I use a lot of sequins, crystals and pearls on my cards and so this was right up my street) and so I knew this was the way forward.

I thought back to the reason my 3rd Birthday card was chosen as the winner and it was due to the personality and emotion that shone through from it. I knew I had to put this same passion in to the card I was about to design and make.

As some of you will know, we lost my Grandad quite suddenly a few months back. He was a great watercolorist and I was honoured to become the proud owner of all of his painting equipment. I knew this card had to contain some form of water colouring. His wife (my Gran) is in a nursing home with Dementia. It is her birthday in August and I decided that it seemed very appropriate that the card should be for her. My Gran was a HUGE fan of butterflies. Everything had to have them on it - jewellery, scarves, ornaments etc. One of my favourite stamps is the butterfly from Visible Image and so I decided that this would have to feature too.

When I watched a tutorial for shaker cards, it was a square shaped shaker that was created. I never like to directly copy something I have seen and so I decided instead to create a hand drawn (very rough) butterfly shape. I used blue glitter card to add a touch of sparkle to the card. For the base of the shaker, I decided to use a technique I had learned on the Watercolour for Card Makers class which involves stamping and image, covering with masking fluid and then water colouring over the top. Once you remove the masking fluid, you are left with a completely unpainted stamped image. I stamped the large butterfly from Visible Image in Memento Paris Dusk and then used a few varying shades of blue paint for the water colouring. Once dried I added some white watercolour paint splatters and then peeled off the masking fluid. I wanted to give the butterfly some sparkle too and so I painted over it with a fine layer of  a water and pearl coloured perfect pearls mixture. This really gives a very subtle 'glisten' to the butterfly which is what I was aiming to achieve. Once dried, I added some blue and white sequins  and stars and then attached my shaker butterfly layer.  I already knew that I wanted to make this a double layered shaker and so I stamped, painted with perfect pearls and cut out the smaller butterfly from Visible Image. I added this to the top of the shaker and put dark blue pearls down the centre of the wings.

I had a gorgeous 'butterfly' sayings stamp in a set my Husband bought me for my Christmas by Personal Impressions that reads 'Birthday Wishes and Butterfly Kisses.' This seemed so appropriate for this card. I stamped this under the shaker in Paris Dusk and added a few accents by way of a hand drawn/cut heart made of white glitter card and a few blue crystals. Viola! Card finished. This card is SO what my Gran would have loved in days gone by. I say that because her memory has been completely taken over by the dementia and she doesn't remember the loves she once had. Her other great love was shoes….and lots of them! She had at least two big trunks full of high heels. I on the other hand, have just a wardrobe filled with shoes and handbags….I wonder who I take after???!!!

I hope you have enjoyed reading my ramblings and like the card. Any comments as always are so very much appreciated.

Laura xx

Runway Inspired Challenge 62

Good afternoon all,

It has been beautiful sunshine here in Scotland and so I have been making the most of getting all possible washing done!! I have realised though that I must get going with making Thank You cards for my son's teachers as term ends in a couple of weeks. As soon as I saw the inspiration photo over at Runway Inspired Challenge, I knew exactly what stamp had to be used and I was desperate to try out something I had been thinking about over the past few days. The stamp of course is my new Hummingbird one from Uniko Studio and the idea was to emboss on acetate and use this as a top layer over and already stamped image of the bird and in-between, put various coloured crystals on the wings to create a rainbow, shimmering effect. I am pleased with the way this has turned out. For the stomach of the the bird, I paper pierced a bit of watercolour paper and water coloured in cobalt blue - similar to the main colours of the dress given as inspiration.

Here is the inspiration photo -

Isn't it a gorgeous dress!!! And here is my interpretation in the way of a Thank You card for my son's teacher.

Thank you for looking and as always, any comments are so very much appreciated xx