Kraft Flower cards

Here are a couple of cards I made recently for friends who were starting new roles at work. I wanted to make something simple yet classic. I love these Waltzingmouse stamps, but couldn't find a matching stamp that said new job, so printed out the sentiment onto some white card and then stamped onto that. Some basic sponging (Distress ink tea dye) around the edge, a thin ribbon and layered onto some kraft card finished this off.

This hyacinth is one of my favourites!

Favourite crafts of 2013

I apologise that my blogging towards the end of 2013 was so sporadic, but I was super busy with work and church, so although I did craft, I just didn't get round to blogging. Infact, some of my favourite cards I haven't even posted yet!
As you will see, if you compare my top picks from this year with last years, paper cutting on my silhouette features hugely this year. I still LOVE stamping, but like to combine it with paper cutting too. I've still been making lots of cakes, but again, haven't had to chance to post them all yet.
I got various craft gifts for Christmas, and can't wait to get some extras I ordered post Christmas with my birthday/Christmas money. Baking featured heavily in my presents, and I'm excited with what I might create this year! I'm not one for New Years resolutions, but I am hoping to make more time to blog and create this year. I need to be super organised with my time, but hopefully will do it!

So here are my top picks from 2013!

My design for a valentines card for my friend Stacey...who you will see later got engaged and then married!

I loved making this card from wallpaper, and that amazing mannequin cut on my silhouette. 

I love this wallpaper card too, and that ruffle ribbon rose!

One of my favourites of the year has to be this. A play on Jurassic park for my Sister in Law.

A lovely Waltzingmouse wedding card, again vintage!

An engagement card for my lovely friend Stacey.

I enjoyed creating this design for some friends who got married in March.

Another favourite, I loved the mini playing cards (salvaged from a cracker!) and the lovely little white rabbit charm.

Elijahs birthday banner, well its rainbow coloured, so of course I love it!

This is my first layered paper cut, I love it, and had to design most of the bits from scratch.

Loved piping this Disney font for EJs birthday cake.

I loved making these mini lego figures for my first ever wedding cake for my lovely friend Stacey!

 And my favourite card of the year??

Ta Da!

I loved making this card so much. It combines almost all of my card crafting techniques (Stamping, embossing, cuttlebug, silhouette, layering, sponging, wire twisting, you name it, its on this card!).

I'm so glad it was a card for Joey, and plan on framing it!

I hope you like my top picks from 2013, just click on a photo to go back to the original post.

Happy New Year!

Irish Red Setter Silhouette Card

My father in law recently got a little puppy. I say little puppy, he won't stay little for long as he's an Irish Red Setter, and they grow to be pretty big!
We wanted to go down and visit them whilst the puppy, Finn, was still small to let our boys get used to him, and he them. You'll see some pictures further down.

For my father in laws birthday I thought I would tie in the new member of the family and used my silhouette to cut a cute red setter. I also used my silhouette to cut out a matching sentiment.

I looked through my 6x6 papers and found 4 that had similar orange/red tones which would work with a red setter. Some of the papers are Basic Grey, but unfortunately all my papers are loose and mixed up, so I couldn't tell you which!

Amazingly this is another card without a single bit of stamping!

Here's Finn with my lovely hubby, and then here is my Monkey being licked by Finn! Monkey is a little scared of him still, and this was really funny watching him try and avoid being licked!!
When we visit again at Christmas I'm sure he'll have grown loads!

Baby Boys cards and Gifts 2

We seem to know lots of people having Baby boys recently, and not being one to make identical cards I made variations on a theme for each of them. The main theme was a Silhouette cut name (my preferred font is Segeo Script as it welds really well for cutting), ribbon strip, sentiment and stamped background in matching colours. 

The first card is a stamped gingham background and little punched footprints. I even added tiny star button embellishments to the name for extra depth.

Stamps: Waltzingmouse Offbeat background, Hero Arts Baby sentiment
Ink: Broken China Distress ink
Embossing folder: Swiss dots
Ribbon: Fantastic Ribbons Organza Aqua dots
Card base: White A5

The second card follows many similar ideas. I stamped a background using the concentric circles from the Waltzingmouse Teeny Trees. I did it by eye as I was in a rush, but it is better if you measure out the circle centres properly. If you have a gridded acrylic block its definitely possible to do this by eye like I did.

Stamps: Waltzingmouse Teeny Trees, Hero Arts Baby sentiment
Ink: Broken China Distress ink
Embossing folder: Swiss dots
Ribbon: Fantastic Ribbons Organza Aqua dots
Card base: White A5

This third card I didn't use a stamped background, but used a That Special Touch of Mica mask and sponged it.

Stamps:  Hero Arts Baby sentiment
Ink: Broken China Distress ink
Embossing folder: Swiss dots
Ribbon: Fantastic Ribbons Organza Aqua dots
Card base: White 5" square

This final piece is a gift I gave to some friends whose little boy was being dedicated. I made each of the cut files and combined to create this image which I framed.

Fall Leaves Wedding Card

Here is the wedding card I made for one of my best friends who recently got married. She wanted a vintage Autumn theme wedding, complete with Fall Leaf cake and all the vintage extras. I decided to make a card which tied in with both these things. I think the little love birds in the tree work well for a wedding card, but this card could easily be adapted to have 1 or no birds in the tree, and with an alternative sentiment.

I even used some of my precious Nana's buttons from her button tin, but they definitely set the card off.

Stamps: Waltzingmouse Teeny trees, Papertrey Ink Leaf prints
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress inks- Tea Dye, Antique linen, Spiced marmalade, Barn Door, Walnut stain
Twine: Fantastic Ribbons Gold and Ivory Bakers twine
Card base: Kraft 6" square

Please let me know what you feel about my alternative style wedding card!

CAS summer Thank You card

A simple yet classy card to say thank you. A little bit of embossing goes a long way, especially on white card, and swiss dots is one of my favourite embossing folders.
As you may realise, green is my go to colour, and this great polka dot washi tape from Fantastic Ribbons really works well.

Stamps: Waltzingmouse Country Labels 4
Ink: Memento Black, Bundled Sage Distress ink
Dies: Spellbinders Labels 4
Embossing folder: Swiss dots
Washi tape: Fantastic Ribbons Green Polka
Card base: Cream A5

This is being entered into the Lawnscaping Challenge #70 - Polka dots

Give Thanks to the Lord Cherries Card

This was a card I sent to Lebanon with a care package of the new Cadburys marvelous creations chocolate for a good friend of mine who is out there helping engineer some projects.

We met when we were both 18 and taking a gap year before university and doing a Year in Industry at different engineering companies, but right next door to each other. Why did we hit it off? Because we both had WWJD bracelets on and had an instant connection.

I was excited to break out my Country Labels 4 stamps again, and especially these super cute cherries.
I stamped the background cherries using Memento Lady Bug ink and pearlised green ink. I used the same green to stamp the labels 4 shape and also on a scrap of card I stamped an extra cherry to fussy cut to embellish. I cut the labels 4 with my Nestabilities die, and a larger one to layer onto which I embossed with Cuttlebug swiss dots. Some lovely dotty ribbon and  layered onto black card and it was finished!

Peter Rabbit First Day of School

This week was my son and nieces first day of Primary school. The card I made for the Waltzingmouse Pajama party here I gave to my son. For my niece I cracked open a new stamp set from Crafters Companion and printed this Peter Rabbit, and coloured with Promarkers. I used my Country Labels 4 stamp for the mat, and also the tiny apple stamp from Teeny trees for my background (I thought it tied in well with the school theme). I cute the mats with Spellbinders Labels 4 and embossed with some circles. Some tiny buttons to embellish it finish it off.

This card is being entered into the Waltzingmouse Bedtime Story Sketch

I hope you like, and please go look at the other entries into the sketch challenge.

Waltzingmouse Pajama Party

I'm excited to be taking part in this months pajama party, especially because I wasn't sure I'd be able to play along, partly due to time constraints, but also because at first glance I couldn't come up with anything for the 4 categories. In actual fact I started to come up with an idea, and it led me to try and incorporate all 4 challenge themes in one card!

The themes are:
1. Tie a knot in it
2. Get Nauty(cal)
3.  Colour inspiration
4. Golden Oldie stamp sets.

So here's my card

So here's how I did it.

I stamped the cloud shape in versamark, from my oldest WMS set,(the awesone Teeny trees!) I think its a tree outline, but it makes a great cloud!  I heat embossed with white embossing powder to act as a resist to the blue ink I sponged for the sky. 

I used my Silhouette to cut the pirate ship(I bought the file from the silhouette store), and then stamped some detail onto the ship using an Offbeat Background stamp to look like planks. I also sponged the sails and added the pirate detail to the flag. 

I cut some blue paper with Spellbinders edgeabilities scalloped borders and then stamped onto it with another Teeny trees stamp to give a wave effect.

I added some extra details with a burgundy crows nest, some Card Candy gold port holes and a hand made anchor.

Here's how I met the challenge themes:

1. Tie a knot in it - My anchor is hand made from silver wire and twisted and knotted. It took me a couple of attempts to get it to look like this!
2. Get Nauty(cal) - The pirate theme!
3.  Colour inspiration
4. Golden Oldie stamp sets. - My oldest WMS stamp set is Teeny Trees.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing what I created, I love to hear your feedback. If you'd like to see what everyone else made pop over to the Waltzingmouse blog.

CAS Anniversary card

This is my CAS anniversary card for my husband for our 9th Anniversary (9 hearts!). I'm lucky that my lovely husband loves the CAS style, so I don't have to spend hours slaving over a card for him! In fact this one was super quick once I'd decided what I wanted to do. I was inspired by this image which I have on one of my pinterest boards, and knew if I made it with 9 hearts and 'love' it would be perfect. It was so easy to do on my Silhouette Portrait. I raised the top layer off the red card to give it some depth.

My husband loved it, hope you do too :)

Cbeebies Mr Tumble Card

Today is my little man's 4th birthday! Here is the card I made to send to the BBC for their Cbeebies channel.

Its done to look like Mr Tumbles spotty bag, and has images from Octonauts, Chuggington, Tree Fu Tom and Number Jacks on it.

There he is, under the 4!

Unfortunately they can't show every card that gets sent in, so its a bit hit and miss. Last years card was a miss, which when you've spent hours making it, and spent about £5 sending it comes as a bit of a blow (especially when you have a little one waiting expectantly by the television!). Here's hoping it gets shown!

Happy Everything Goes!

Here is a card I made for my sister in law whose birthday is tomorrow. After being inspired by the recent Pajama party to use my Folk art medallion set with some vivid colours I set about finding the perfect combination of colours. After some experimentation I decided to go for Distress Inks in Seedless Preserve, Forest Moss and Chipped Sapphire.

I took the tiny pennant from the set and stamped along the central section with alternating colours.

I also embossed some purple card with Swiss dots and stamped an extra medallion and some leaves for embellshmenst. Finally the sentiment is Paper Smooches from the set Simply Said.

I'm entering this into the Waltzingmouse Pajama Party Bedtime story sketch

and the Paper Smooches Anything goes challenge

Pajama Party! - Kraft art folk Happy Days card

Welcome to the First Waltzingmouse Pyjama Party! 

It's a late night (UK!) blog party which replaces the Blog party/Blog waltz. I'll be honest, I'll miss the old format on the 17th, but I do welcome the broader range of the new challenge, as some months I was really struggling to find a way to play along, sometimes meaning I just wasn't able to, but the new format means that will be much less likely.

Personally I'm not a night owl, so will probably be one of the last to link up my cards, but hey ho!

I chose to do the In The Background challenge, and stamp one of the small Fold Art Medallion images.

Here is the card I made for a friend who is starting a new phase in her career and I wanted to let her know that bright days are ahead. I think Folk Art Medallions is one of my new favourite stamp sets from Waltzingmouse, and it's SO versatile. I stamped up the background super quick using Walnut Stain distress ink and it was straight forward using a grid acrylic block. I actually stamped straight onto the kraft card base. I then stamped the Folk Art Labels 25 onto some cream cardstock using more walnut stain and the sponged all the edges. The sentiment is from an old set of Banana Frog stamps, but they are now discontinued. A lovely chocolate brown ribbon edged in gold finished off this card.
I hope you like it, do check out the other cards over on the Waltzingmouse blog.

Pretty Banner Card

Here is the card I made for my beautiful niece who was 1 a few weeks ago. This card is almost entirely made on my silhouette.

First I cut a number 1 from pink card and embossed it with cuttlebug Swiss dots. I also cut a coordinating white number 1 to layer onto. I also cut little banner triangles from white card, and some patterned paper I got in a magazine last year, each one with a letter of her name. 

I placed some pink card behind the letter banners to make them stand out. Each little banner is attached to some twine so it falls like a real banner.

Mickey Mouse 1st Birthday card

This is the card I made for my little man for his birthday, and it is made almost entirely on my Silhouette portrait. We went to Disneyland Paris last week, and in preparation for doing my first real scrapbook I've been looking on Pinterest at loads of Disney layouts and free files which inspired this card. The font is called Waltograph and can be downloaded free from www.dafont.com (SO useful for all your font needs!). I made the background paper myself by replicating a little Mickey head over and over. The Silhouettes print feature makes this easy (and it also meant I could just print his name and then cut it on my silhouette. I googled some Mickey things like hands and shorts, then using the trace feature on the Silhouette software I was able to cut each other the parts in different sections and layer up the colours. Some bright red and yellow card was all I needed to finish it off, with a little stitched edge ribbon. I hope you like it :)