Simple Die Cuts

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

We had lovely sunshine yesterday it was still chilly though, the sun does warm the house though, mind you we have huge windows,  we commented on them when we looked around the house and Bill who designed the house said yes they are big windows because sunshine is free and it warms the room!!  He is a man with thinking the same as Paul's!!  

Lucy and I popped into Witney to return some parcels and pick up some more from next.  Fingers crossed one of these dresses works!!  I think Sophie is on her 4th choice too.  Lucy chose well and loved the dress when it came, it was too big though so she is waiting on the smaller size.  

Today's card was a quick make at the end of the afternoon,  I used Crumb Cake ink to stencil a little detail on the bottom right of the card, I the  used some scraps of card to cut some die cut some stems, which I adhered over the stencilling.  I tied some twine around the stems and added a sentiment.

Quick & Simple but I think I like it.

Sending love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra 

xxxxxx

Coloured Embossing

 

Good Morning Ladies 

Hands up who had to put their heating on last night??!  It got so cold as the afternoon went on, I was sat in a really thick fleece with a huge throw wrapped around me but I was still cold,  I did wonder if it was just me feeling the effects of Uti but Paul and the girls were cold too, so Paul put the heating on and prepared the log burner just in case the heating wasn't enough.  We had the hot water bottle to take to bed too.  They did say that there was a good chance of a frost this week, you just never know where you are with our weather. 

Today's card was inspired by a Marion Emberson feature in the Creative Stamping Magazine,  she used different coloured embossing powder to add colour to her stamped flowers.   Now my first couple of tries just didn't work, it was like the embossing powder had been absorbed into the card, it wasn't raised or shiny, but the colour was there, so I changed from Perfect Medium to Versamark and changed the card too,  which did make a difference.  So I stamped the flower four times, the flower is a Tim Holtz stamp, once stamped I used a combination of embossing powders in various pastel shades, adding one colour at a time then tipping the excess back into the jar before moving on to the next colour.  It us a Clean and simple look, I'm not sure I love it though, I think I should maybe have used a bigger sentiment, but I didn't want it to be too busy.  I also love those Julie Hickey sentiments !                              I tried to capture the shine of the embossing without much success, you will have to imagine it. 🤣😂

I hope the sun shows up to warm your day, 

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

C & S card using a Tissue Technique Background

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies,

Welcome to the start of another week, we are on the run down to the end of April,  another month whizzed past, with Emily's wedding on the 3rd weekend of May I think that month will whizz by too.  

We had an absolutely glorious day yesterday,  I could really feel the heat of the sun while I was sat out on the decking potting on and sowing more seeds,  I got French Beans snd Runner beans started yesterday,  hopefully they will ready to plant out towards the end of May,  I did sow some carrots, Rocket and marigolds in one of the raised beds, it will be nice to see things growing in them,   ooh I did notice that a few of the strawberries have now got flowers on them, so they are liking their new surroundings!! 

Today's card really was a quick & easy card, I realised when I came in from the garden that I had nothing to post today, so I picked one if the Pixie Powder / tissue Technique backgrounds, cut a piece of card almost 1/2 inch smaller than my card base, die cut a square and placed the background behind the aperture.  I die cut the Gummiapan Dragonfly out of Vellum with a white body and placed it in the aperture,  I finished the card with a sentiment die cut in white so that your eye was drawn to that lovely background. 

I hope that you all have a great start to the week,

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra 

xxxxxx

Your Challenge cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

We were blessed with a lovely sunny day yesterday,  although it was still chilly.  It was lovely catching up with Brenda, Karen, Maria & Sue.  We were too busy chatting to get any crafting done!  It was a little frustrating that the hotel didn't do hot lunches, we had to make do with very poor selection of sandwiches,  luckily Paul came back in the afternoon with a lovely selection of cakes from M&S!  

Let's have a look at your cards  ...

Your Challenge cards 

Karen 

Karen's Description:

scored card with a Sue W poinsettia A printed sentiment cut on ScanNCut with an offset line of 1mm

A perfect Clean and simple card Karen, that new ScanNCut has earned its place already!  Do you find your using it more as you don't have to faff about with blade depths etc ?  

Thank you so much for taking part in this weeks challenge XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Here is my card for this week, old stamps, which I have had for years, so I can’t remember the names. The little leaves boarder stamps are so useful. The primrose is an old stamping up set with butterflies and small filler stamps. Used my zig pens to colour, as usual these days.

I have that stamp set and always overlook it, that primrose is so beautiful though, coloured beautifully as always, the stamping around it gives the illusion of a beautiful frame.  Thank you so much for making a card for this challenge my lovely XXX 

Maria 

Maria's Description:

My CAS cards for Sunday.

1) I scored a few lines on the side. Made two flowers by stamping and used Distress Oxide in Carved Pumpkin, Crackling Campfire and Ripe Persimmon.

2) Here I just used colours in pink and purple paint and brushed directly onto the card. Used an old stamp from my stash and the card was finished.

Oh wow Maria those flowers are so pretty,  I love the colours you have used, a beautiful Clean & Simple card.  

I absolutely love the stamped scene on your second card, that could be so many places, it could definitely be the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater at Brixham.  

Thank you so much for taking part in the Challenge XXX 

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Fingers crossed for sunshine today,  I hope that you all have a lovely relaxing day.

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra 

xxxxxx

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all relaxed and ready for the weekend, what are you all up to this weekend? 

Today is going to be a good day as I get to see some lovely friends,  for a good catch up and maybe a little crafting.  Such a perfect start to the weekend.

Tissue Technique Background 

Some off you commented on the Tissue paper background I did the other day so I thought I'd show you the process using different colour mediums so that you can all have a go with what you have.  

The start process is always the same regardless of what medium you use....

Take a piece of card and cover with any dries clear glue.

Make sure you spread it over the whole piece of card, right up to the edges.

Take a piece of tissue paper and scrunch it up so that it fits the size of your card 

Push tissue paper right into the glue, making sure its all touching the glue, you can now trim the edges carefully. 

For this type of tissue Technique the method is the same up to this point, the only difference from now on is the colour medium you choose.

Adding Colour 

This first one I used Pixie Powders,  I picked blues & greens, sprinkled the powders all over the background and then spritzed with water. Have a piece of card ready to 'Smoosh' the water and powders together...

Lay the piece of card over your background and smoosh it right into the powders abd water, this mixes everything together.

Peel that top piece of card away to reveal the magic! Now set this to one side to dry

Don't waste the overspill of powder give a couple of spritzes of water and then mop up that gorgeous colour combination with a piece of card

This is what you will get from the waste!!  Perfect for die cutting or using as a mat. 

Spray inks

Place your tissue covered card into a box to keep the mess to a minimum, then choose your colours

I used Tim Holtz Mica Sprays in green with a bit of blue. 

Once sprayed you do exactly the same as above, spritz your coloured piece with water and take a piece of card to smoosd the colour into the tissue, 

You always get a bonus piece of coloured background to use that way! 

This one was Tim Holtz sprays too, I repeated the same method as above.

These were my bonus mop up pieces! 

Distress Oxides

Now I know that some of you don't have sprays or Mica powders, so I thought I would try Distrss Oxide inks,  I smooshed a selection onto my glass mat and spritzed with lots of water,  I then took the tissue covered card and really smooshed it into all of those inks, I added more water at one point,  you have to move your card around to get good coverage but it definitely worked !!  If you want to add some sparkle,  you could add a pearl mica or pixie powder or add a few drops from a clear sparkle pen. 

This is the Distress Oxide results, it looks amazing!  

I cannot wait to see how these all looked when they dried. 

Acetate & Alcohol Inks 

Take a piece of Acetate (use heat resistant if you want to stamp on it).  Have your piece of tissue paper ready. Gather your Alcohol inks and tool.

Add your inks to your acetate and use the tool and felt to spread the around the acetate, I used a little blending solution to get the colours mixed in.

 

When the alcohol ink is dry I sprayed some adhesive over the acetate and stuck the tissue paper to that. (Because I didn't know how pva type glue would react with alcohol ink) 

This is the look at this point, I felt that the Tissue needed to be stuck down a bit more so ........

I took a piece of white card and added glue as I did for the stage above.  Stick the adhesive to the tissue on the acetate and press down firmly so that the glue gets pushed right into the tissue paper, this gives a much stronger piece to stamp onto. 

Doesn't it look amazing??? 

The Results

Pixie powder results. It was impossible to capture the sparkle. 

Mica Spray, you can just see the sparkle on the top photo. 

Second Mica spray, the colour is lovely on this one, you can just see glints of Mica 

Distress Oxide background, colours a more muted but still looks lovely. 

Alcohol ink and Acetate results, this would make lovely die cut leaves. 

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Such a fun technique with great results,  some will make lovely backgrounds,  others will make beautiful flowers or butterflies.  I cannot wait to create with them all. 

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial,  if you have any questions please ask. 

Have a lovely weekend,  fingers crossed for some sunshine. 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxxx