Tuesday 19 March 2024

Fractured Card Landscape

 


Good Morning Ladies, 

Well we are one busy day down, we dropped Becca & Adam off at Heathrow, they were flying to Muscat and then from Muscat to Sri Lanka, I think it was 11 hours in total, I am crossing everything that Becca's knees and elbow don't swell like they did last time 🤞 this is another busy holiday like it was when they  went ti Bali last year,  this time they aren't taking taxis,  they have hired TukTuk's for the whole holiday,  they are travelling 4 hours some days!!! I am worried sick. 😔

I made another 'Fractured' card, this time I changed the layout to landscape rather than portrait.


I got my bits together, card base  a piece of patterned paper matted onto a black mat, 4 x 1/4 strips that I added a tiny edge of black to, so that it ties on with black mat. My focal piece and a white square 2 x 2 inch 


I added my patterned paper & black mat to my card base.


Then I decided where my focal point was going to be and adhered my white square.

I added my first strip, making sure it lined up with the corner of the white square 


I took the next strip and did the same, butting right up to corner and the last strip.


Here are all of them adhered into place.

Turn card over and trim from the back.  You are now ready to add your focal piece, this time I popped the butterfly onto foam squares.


Here is the finished card with focal point piece and sentiment.  

I can't wait to see if you all have a go?!

I am hoping to see a lovely friend today, nothing better than crafting with a friend  

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra                                                                    xxxxxx 


Monday 18 March 2024

Sonia's last TicTacToe card

 



Good Monday Morning Ladies,

Here we are at the start of another week, we have a busy week this week so I imagine it will whizz by.  Paul is going into the office today, he doesn't usually go in on a monday but he has something urgent ti resolve 🙄.  I am keeping fingers crossed he isn't held up though as we are taking Becca & Adam to Heathrow early afternoon as they are off to Sri Lanka for 3 weeks, its a special trip they are meeting up with Adam's twin and his girlfriend who are mid way through a 3 year backpacking trip, they haven't seen each other since their Bali trip last year, It’s Adam & Ross's 30th Birthday so a holiday full of celebrations.  

Today's card is Sonia's last TicTacToe card, after an extremely long day on Saturday Sonia didn't get it sent in time,  for me it's a bonus as it means it gets a whole blog post to itself.

Sonia's Description:

Stencil/flowers/die cut 

I used a Memory Box stencil for the background, inked with Picked Raspberry distress oxide. The ‘Happy Birthday’ die is from Spellbinders and flowers from Gummiapan also inked in Picked Raspberry. The sentiment is from The Stamp Market.

Sonia your card is gorgeous,  I love the monochromatic look, simple Picked Raspberry and white...stunning !  Those Gummipian flowers are so lovely as is that Spellbinders sentiment 😍               Thank you so much for supporting the challenge my lovely XXX 

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

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxxxx



Sunday 17 March 2024

Your TicTacToe Cards

 





Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

We had a very cloudy day yesterday but we were determined to get a start on the pallet collars that we are using for out raised beds for our vegetable plot.  We made good progress,  however we were aware that the heavens could have opened at any moment,  if you wait for the perfect day though it might not come in time,  we need to get these painted and filled as soon as possible so that we can get planting.  Lots of our seeds have sprouted too so there is lots of potting on to be done too.  I bought some really pretty Dahlias from a grower called 'Farmer Gracy' they are all peaches and cream colours, they need potting up too!! I think we need a gardener!!! 🤣😂

Let's have a look at what you have been making:  


Your TicTacToe Cards

Maria 


Maria's Description:

Hello 🤗
I have made a card for Sunday, yippee yay me 🤣. I just sat here and played with doing some colours and embossing and this is what I ended up with. Hope it's alright. 

I used TH inks ( Dusty Concord, Shaded Lilac and Kitsch Flamingo 🦩).  Heat embossed some flowers. Coloured some in and finished off with some raindrops. 

Hope it's alright?? Maria it is BEAUTIFUL, your blended background is so pretty,  I never think to use Kitsch Flamingo but it is such a pretty pink.  Your embossed flowers are so delicate and work perfectly with the background.  I think this is one of your prettiest cards, thank you so much for inspiring me with your colour choices and for taking part.
Having your new craft studio is obviously boosting your creativity XXX

Lilian 


Lilian's Description:

Here is my card for this week.
Punch/ Stamping/ Card.
I used Tim Holtz stamp,( one of my favourites as you probably have noticed.)
Coloured with my zig pens on Bristol paper.
Background dots is a small Lavinia £1 stamp.

Lilian thank you for another beautiful TicTacToe card, your blending with your Zig pens is seamless, its such a lovely stamp to colour, which shows off colouring skills perfectly.  I find it incredible that you use a different colouring medium each week too.  The dotty background highlights the stamped piece so well and that tiny border of blue really makes the colour pop.
Thank you so much for a beautiful challenge card my lovely XXX 

Karen


Karen's Description:

Here’s my first go at doing a shape within machine and doing an offset line
Had to make the outside edge inward and the shapes outward
TicTacToe- patterned paper - stamping (sentiment) - embossing (sentiment)

Karen 'Wow' you must be so pleased with how this card turned out, I know I'd be buzzing!!  It sounds so complicated but my goodness it was worth the time it took to work it out.  Lucy was really impressed when I showed her, I think she might have a play.  The paper you have used works so well with the design too. 
Thank you so much for taking part and inspiring Lucy XXX



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Some pretty florals in today's display,  as always it's surprising to see how each of you interpret the TicTacToe grid.  Thank you all for participating ❤️ 

More garden chores for us today,  I will be doing the lighter tasks as always,  lots of potting up and potting on today.

What are you all up to today?

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                    xxxxxx 



Saturday 16 March 2024

Mixed Up Saturday/Fractured Card Technique

 

The moment you realise your craft supply 

Collection could qualify you to open a shop!!! 



My Mother's Day card from Sophie


Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that the sun is shining where you are and that you are all having a relaxing weekend.  Our main job is treating the wood for our raised beds. Then working out where they will all go, I think that will a job for Paul though, I could put a hat on and a high viz vest and go out with my clipboard pretending to be overseeing things! 🤣😂               However if it's raining I will be inside!

Above you can see the hilarious but brilliant digital Mother's Day card that Sophie designed for me, she also made a copy into a card, the colours are brighter on this copy though,  I love how she has included everyone in the family, even Milo & Bella.  Your cards always make me smile Soph, thank you so much xxx

Fractured Card Technique 


I love the design of these cards, they look like you have to sit and measure all the little pieces of patterned paper so that they sit with equal amounts of border between each one, far too tedious to be fun!!  But it's much simpler than that....


I started with my usual card base:  4 1/4  X 5 1/2 inch, I added a piece of 'Flight & Harry" patterned paper 1/4 inch smaller than the card base.               To prepare for 'fractured ' part I added a 2 inch square of white card to my card base, I made sure it was in the centre and stuck it down.


Cut 4 strips of card around 5 inches long & 1/4 inch wide (I cut mine slightly less than that as I thought the looked too thick). Try it and see what you think. 


Now the magic starts 😉, take one of the strips and line it up with the corner of one side of the square,  then take the next piece and repeat on the second side.....


Work your way around the square, making sure you glue the strips enough that there adhere to the edge of the card.


Take your scissors and trim the over hanging strips and there you have your basic Fractured card, all that is needed is the focal point and sentiment...


There you go, see I told you it was much easier than you imagined!

You can use this method and have your card landscape instead of portrait.   You can even use other shapes for the focal point,  a hexagon would need 6 strips,  the basics are exactly the same though.  

Also the style of this card works with this weeks challenge too !! 

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Please let me know if you need any further information, my greatest joy comes from helping you.  😊 xxx

Maria's Craft Room




Oh Maria WOW !! Your craft room looks incredible, your desk is lovely,  it has so much storage and is perfectly placed to benefit from the natural light.  Your Billy bookcases look amazing too, I bet you were surprised to discover you had enough stash to fill all of those shelves!! It looks lovely,  if you are anything like me it will take you a while to remember where you put everything 😉                    You waited a long time for your on craft space, I'm sure Christian loves the transformation of his own room, especially knowing how much happiness it brings you. 

Thank you so much for sharing your craft room with us XXX 

I hope you ladies all have a lovely weekend,  

Love and hugs to all of you  

Sandra                                                                    xxxxxx 




Friday 15 March 2024

Our Next Challenge

 





Good Friday Morning Ladies,

I hope today finds you all as well as can be expected,  special hugs to those of you in pain, especially our Brenda and Janet Maria and Lilian,  Sue I hope you have recovered from your migraine. xx

Yesterday was the one of 'those' days,  I was ok when I got up but felt a little low as the day went on, I struggled to keep my eyes open in the afternoon, I couldn't kick my head into gear, I think it's partially to do with the fact that I am really struggling to sleep again, I was taking magnesium every night but I ran out and kept forgetting for re-order, so I was a couple of weeks without them, I got some more last week and hopefully they will help, I can be literally nodding off on the sofa and when I first get into bed, trying to read to wind down and I keep dropping my book as I keep falling asleep, I will maybe sleep for about 45 minutes to an hour and then I wake up suddenly, my heart will be racing and it takes a good hour or more to calm down as I try different breathing techniques.  As soon as Paul's alarm goes off at 5am I am back awake and will stay awake for a couple of hours or so while my meds take hold so that I can get out of bed.  Fingers crossed these new magnesium tablets will make a difference.

Our Next Challenge

I asked in our Blog Chat group for ideas for this weeks challenge as I just couldn't get my mind in gear yesterday afternoon, Karen suggested a Card Sketch which is something we haven't done for a while so here we are.  Now I chose this design because it will work well with the card technique I am going to share with you on tomorrow's blog, that way if you want to have a go at that technique it will work well for the technique. 





These are some cards that were made for this particular challenge, I wanted to show you that you don't have to use the sketch exactly as it is, you can turn it round, move the elements about, its basically your interpretation of the sketch. 

I look forward to seeing what you all create.  


I hope that you all have a lovely Friday,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                                                                                                          xxxxxx

Thursday 14 March 2024

A fun new technique Card

 


Good Morning Ladies, 

We enjoyed another mostly dry day yesterday,  Paul managed to get the washing out on the line, which made him happy as it meant no tumble drying! 💰! The girls invited me to go out for the day with them but I just didn't have the energy, the thing I want to do is make their fun time frustrating (their days off together are a rare occurence), I know they wouldn't complain but I would have felt awful.  Paul was workinf from home so I got to spend the day with him 😍

I discovered a new technique yesterday, it has different names, 'fractured card' 'shutter card' or Exploding card!  Either way, whatever its called its a great technique and much easier than it looks. 

I have photographed it step by step for Saturday's blog post.  

The paper is called Flight & Airy, the base card colour is Misty Moonlight. 

I hope that you all have a good day,

Love & hugs,

Sandra xxx 


Wednesday 13 March 2024

Another Journal Page





Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

Another wet and miserable day here, our neighbours have a campsite towards the bottom of their land and he was saying yesterday that if there is anymore rain he will have to cancel his Easter bookings because the ground is so water logged, big campers and motor homes would just sink in the grass.  I guess it must affect a lot of similar businesses like that, I know the Wildlife park limits numbers in wet weather as they have a small tarmac car park but the bigger car parks are all on grass and so parking is a no no!   I hope one benefit we can get from all of this rain is no hosepipe bans in the summer! 

Today I am sharing my second double page journal spread with a Spring theme.  I don’t love the background as much on this one but I tried to make up for that with the lovely purple flowers etc.  The background is an Alcohol ink on Gel press background, using Purple Twilight and Limeade alcohol ink, I think I will use a different shade of green next time, the backgrounds were part of a Tracy Evans workshop.  I did like Tracy's idea of using the lid of a jar dipped in white acrylic paint to create a circular focal point without adding layers of dimension, so that the journal closes ok.  I stamped and coloured the flowers with Distress Oxide inks, Wilted Violet, shaded lilac and a mix of greens for foliage.  I quite like the result, although I will say that the 'grungy ' messy look ' takes some getting used to for me, I do prefer a more uniform neat & tidy look, I am getting used to the journal look though.  This one will grow on me, the previous one is still my favourite, I just adored that background 🥰😍

I hope that you all stay dry and warm today my lovelies, 

Love & gentle hugs to all,

Sandra xxx