Friday 28 March 2014

A Simply Betty Beauty

Today's card was made using a fabulous digi from Simply Betty. She was such a pleasure to colour and fitted the bill perfectly for a card where the brief was to make 'something elegant' for my friends nieces 21st birthday celebrations.

I teamed her up with some gorgeous First Edition 'Neroli' papers and added some flowers, ribbon and gems from my stash to finish it all off.


Happy Birthday 'Lovely Laura'. I hope you like her!

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges: 





Sunday 23 March 2014

Kenny K- Extreme

I always find male cards so tricky and when I was asked to make a card for a friends brother in law who liked skateboarding I was initially a bit stumped, but then I looked on Kenny K Downloads and found the perfect digi to get me started. 

I used a brick stencil and inks to create the background and gave it a bit of a graffiti feel by spattering some dylusions on it. I created a ramp using black card, a tyre track mask and silver ink and mounted the cut digi on foam pads to make him pop out of the card. 

 

It's impossible not to have fun with Kenny's fabulous images and this one made doing a male card an absolute pleasure!

Thursday 20 March 2014

Indigo Blu Going For Gold Challenge Entry

I recently bought my first Indigo Blu stamps and oh my word, how gorgeous are they?! I don't have many (yet!) but every one is a valued addition to my stamp collection and I'm definitely keen to get some more. 

When I spotted this months challenge 'Going for Gold' on their challenge blog I had to dig out my 'Ella Bella' stamp and take part. I stamped her on black card with flitterglu and made her shine with some gilding flakes. I die cut the doily to mount her on from gold card, but decided it needed a more aged look so covered it with Frantage and heat embossed. I mounted on pretty paper , which I toned down with antique linen distress ink and added gold gilding wax to an embossed panel to add more interest. The sentiment is from Indigo Blu's 'Enjoy Life' set. A few roses, a golden butterfly and a little flourish finished her off nicely.


I am entering this card into Indigo Blu Challenge 13- Going for Gold

Wednesday 19 March 2014

Anyone for Pie?

I was asked this week to make a card for somebody who loves to bake and this is what I came up with. I wanted to create something with a real Spring/Summer feel and the papers I found in my stash fitted the bill perfectly, and I coloured the stamped image with promarkers to co ordinate perfectly.



Baking always makes me feel cosy inside and I see it as a craft in itself ( and one I haven't mastered terribly well!) and I felt that this card needed a bit more of a home made feel to it to finish it off. I dug out my Sew Easy tool and used it to create the cross stitch border. It's not a tool I use often as I find it a bit of a faff, but it did remind me just how much I love to cross stitch, which is something I can do well. I must get cracking on a picture I started a few years ago and get it finished actually. Once I discovered papercrafting my cross stitch kind of took a back seat. Think it's time to rectify that! 

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:


Monday 17 March 2014

Spring Daffodils

I can't help but smile when I see daffodils and when I saw this stamp on Anonymous Stamps I thought it would make the perfect card for my mum in laws birthday next week.

I coloured with promarkers, die cut, and added a touch of distress ink to the edges to frame it. I mat and layered some pretty spring papers to go underneath and added ribbon and buttons to finish it off. 

Hope she likes it!




Saturday 15 March 2014

Memory Keeping

While my main crafty 'thing' seems to have become card making I'm never averse to turning my hand to something different. My friend Zoe recently asked if I fancied a challenge (as it turns out this wasn't to prove the trickiest challenge she's set me but more on that at a later date!!). Along with two other friends of mine, their husbands and combined total of six children Zoe is off to Florida next month and she wanted to give the children some special boxes in which to store their precious holiday of a lifetime memories. She had already had three boxes made and was a bit disappointed with them so asked me to create something unique for the other three. I couldn't say no, not just because I like a challenge but also because three of the six girlies are on my own daughters BFF list!

I knew that dolphins are a huge love of Emma's, the first recipient (and confusingly who also shares the same name as my own daughter) so that seemed an obvious theme. I set to work with distress inks and created a scene and rooted around in my craft box and found a perfect teeny dolphin punch and it all came together nicely. 


For Ellie I decided to go with some glittery fairies. I created the scene with inks and stamps and used the Fairy Dust mask from Splodgeaway to frame it. Around the outside I used texture paste, spray inks and shimmer mists to give it a bit of sparkle, and finished it off with some pretty gems.


Today I finally got to finish the last one and stuck with the fairy theme for little Evelyn using a digi from Jellypark. I coloured her with promarkers and added glitter and gems for some extra sparkle. I hope she likes it. 


Friday 14 March 2014

My first ever blog challenge entry!

Ok so while I have crafting sussed (well, sort of- there's always more to learn of course!) I am still feeling my way with craft related blogging, but I do know there is an active blog community and lots of crafty challenges around to enter. I've been poking about various blogs and have decided to take the plunge and enter my first one. I would like to enter this into Anonymous Stamps March challenge. 

The theme for the challenge is Leap Into Spring and as the season is all about new beginnings I chose to use this digi to make a new home card. I love anything fairy related so couldn't resist this gorgeous little abode. I created the background using a combination of inks and coloured the main image with my trusty Promarkers. I added a bit of sparkle with some stickles on the butterflies and created texture with Flowersoft. 


My 8yr old daughter has just seen the finished card and sighing said ' I wish we were fairies Mummy so we could live there.' I couldn't agree more!

Tuesday 11 March 2014

No such thing as waste!

Like most crafters I hate waste and save every last little scrap of stuff in case I can use it another time and in this cards case I am very glad I do! The main flower (from Indigo Blu) was stamped and embossed onto a scrap left over from a gelli print I recently created, and the other backing papers I made from odd scraps of black and silver card. The silver script was created using gilding flakes and while I loved it with the flower next to it I then found myself struggling to find a suitable backing paper for the main thing, so created my own by embossing a scrap of silver card and toning it down with alcohol inks and gilding flakes. I pulled it all together with a scrap of lilac lace and added a couple of brads I have had for ages to pretty it up some more. 


Not bad for scraps I thought!

Monday 10 March 2014

Oh I Do Love a Bargain!

I visited the Make It exhibition at Farnborough a couple of weeks ago and spied some great stamps on the Everything a Pound stall and have finally had the chance to have a little play with one of the sets that fell into my basket and this is the result. 


I started by stamping out and embossing the main image on my cardstock and then creating a mask to go over the top (excuse the pun!).  I used a harlequin mask and distress inks to create the background and used clear texture paste over the top to create some shine and add dimension. Once it was dry I used distress ink to colour the main image. I mounted it on black and pink card to frame it, added the embellishments and sentiment to finish it off. 

For a single pound I think this set will give me hours of fun. What a bargain!

Friday 7 March 2014

The Best Way to Spend Some Time Off Work!

I have had a rare occurrence this week- some time off work. Normally I am busy playing with and entertaining after my little childminded charges, but with two away visiting grandparents and another requesting a change to days this week I have found myself enjoying some time to play my own way and here's what I have been up to.

Birthday card for a special little girl

Hunkydory card to mark a milestone birthday

New baby

Two colour only card using the Inkadinkado system

Image by Saturated Canary 

And now I find myself with an evening without even my own children here so I am off to play some more I think!

Monday 3 March 2014

Flower Prints on the Gelli Plate

As I was packing away my craft things last night I spied a paper I had created a week or so ago on my gelli plate and an idea popped into my head for them so I binned tidying and got stamping and I am glad I did as I really love the results on these cards.

The paper was created with acrylic paint and the same Indigo Blu stamp I have used for the main image. I lightly pressed the clean stamp into the paint on the plate, which created a really nice subtle image when I pulled the print off. I trimmed the paper down and matted in on purple card and stamped and embossed the flowers, then painted them with Twinkling H20's. Ok so I know poppies are usually red but I had to use creative licence on this one to make it work but I'm sure the recipients won't mind!


I added sentiments to both cards and voila-two very pretty and simple yet effective cards.


I have a stack more one off gelli prints crying out to be used so watch this space to see what I come up with next!

Sunday 2 March 2014

A Little Bit of Magic on a Sunday Afternoon

Yesterday two of my sisters, our mum and my niece and I visited the Make It exhibition at Farnborough. As a relatively new papercrafter I had never ventured to such an event before, which I suspect my bank manager and husband are very grateful for! The description 'kid in a sweetie shop' springs to mind and I had an absolute ball as I browsed the stands and had more than a little retail therapy as you can see!





Deciding what to play with today has been a challenge, and my sister Laura has had the same problem, but as we both indulged in our very first Lavinia Stamps we agreed we would both play with them first.

I set to work building a scene with my Adirondack inks and some stenskape masks from Splodgeaway and when I was happy with that I stamped the cute little fairies, stars, flowers and leaves. I added stickles to the fairy wings and glittered the moon for a bit of extra sparkle you can never have too much sparkle on a dreary Sunday afternoon after all!



Welcome to My Crafty Hall

Howdy folks!

I've decided the time has come to find my own little corner of blog land and set up home here with all my crafty dabblings. I plan to adorn the walls of Lynda's Crafty Hall  with pictures of my makes and make it all pretty so I hope you enjoy the read. 

While I think I have the basics of blogging sussed out a lot of it is a  mystery to me, so as well as recording my creative journey hopefully it will take me on a bit of a technical journey too and I can continue to improve my skills with both.

Enough of my waffling, time to hang my first picture and most recent make. I was asked recently by a friend to create something in my own style for her to hang in her home. To say I was flattered is an understatement! I mean, cards no problem- people receive them, look at them for a bit then put them away so while I take time and care with them If there are slight flaws I don't see it as a major problem and it just adds to the hand crafted look that I love. But something to go on display in someone's home felt like a whole new ball game. I like a challenge though and looked at it as a way to continue to develop my creative side and I have to say I am pleased I did as I love the way it turned out.

My mum recently treated me the the beautiful Family Tree stencil and Filigraphy stamp set from Clarity after we saw them demo'd on TV and I said how much I loved it and so when Louise asked me to create her something special I thought this would be the perfect thing to use.


I started by using my Gelli Plate and brown acrylic paint to pull a print of the tree itself. It took a few goes to get a print I was happy with but I got there in the end. When dry I put the mask over the top and used distress inks to create the sky,grass and earth and white modelling paste to add texture to the small leaves, which I went on to paint with my Twinkling H20's in autumnal colours.


I stamped the large leaves in  two different colours each to give the effect of the season changing, added the names of her beautiful family members and clear embossed over the top to give them shine before mounting on sticky pads to give them a more dimensional look. To finish the whole thing off I went over the white areas of the tree that had been left when I pulled the print with a distress marker and added a little Flowersoft to the grass to create texture. I mounted it onto gold and brown card to finish it off. 

All in all I think it went pretty well and I am proud to know that a piece of my work will be hanging in my friends own little corner of the world making it look all pretty. Think I may have to make one for myself now too!