Having a go at a challenge

Whilst I was off at Easter I managed a lot of the Splitcoaststampers challenges and, in doing so, discovered that there are lots of Challenge Blogs out there.  I've put several in my favourites list but, up until now, haven't had an opportunity to do more than look each week.  This week I'm actually going to have a go at one.  I have been eyeing up the new Michael Powell stamps for a while and took the plunge last week and bought two.  Imagine my delight when this week's Twisted Tuesday Challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to use one of them.  They also gave us an extra week to enter so I really had no excuse for not joining in.  The challenge theme was 'Vacation' and the twist was to keep it clean and simple.  Here's what I came up with

I added the retirement sentiment as it seemed perfect for a friend who is to retire soon.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

What do you know, it worked!

I thought I was doing OK with this blogging lark but, having just checked it's been nearly a whole month since I last posted.  As this is the case (and having nagged my sister-in-law for not updating her blog recently) I decided to throw in a quick post.  I was recently asked to create a card for a couple who were getting married.  I had decided to go with a simple ivory and gold theme and was using some pearlised card stock.  I had been asked to put the couples name on the card and I couldn't find my small alphabet die (it's still missing in action if anyone's seen it).  The obvious thing to do was to use my computer and print the wording but that meant black ink.  Well, I knew that, in theory, I could heat emboss using my printer but I'd never tried it out.  So I decided to give it a go and, to my utter astonishment, it worked really well.  Here is the result

I do think that it helped that the card stock was pearlised as the ink needs to stay wet for a short while in order to add the embossing powder.  It must have been OK though as my customer wants another one for the next wedding she's attending.  A very satisfying result I think.  Thanks for reading.  Love Dawn x

What I did in the holidays

Well, I've just had a lovely break from work over the Easter holidays.  I've not done much at all but it did give me an opportunity to enter lots of challenges.  I'm a big fan of the Splitcoast Stampers website.  They have a couple of challenges everyday which can be found on the right hand side at the bottom of their home page.  I check out the card making posts daily for inspiration but I rarely have time to play.  Well, over the last few days I've had lots of time to play and I've had such fun.  Here's what I've come up with.

  this was for the clean and simple challenge which gave us a magazine cover full of pastel shades as inspiration

This was for the ways to use it challenge which gave 'colouring your image' as a theme

This was for the inspiration challenge which gave us a website to browse for inspiration.  I chose a plain Tshirt with the same sentiment as my inspiration.  What were the chances that I'd have a stamp with the same sentiment written on it?

This was for the sketch challenge this week.

I have done lots of other cards over the last week as well and even a few Atcs.  I've also found lots of new challenge blogs that I didn't know existed.  Unfortunately, I have to return to work tomorrow.  Oh Rats!!





Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Today, I will be mostly recycling

Well, so much for me keeping up to date on the blog.  Having figured out I could use my old phone to take pictures I then lost the lead to re-charge the thing.  Anyway, I've now found a lead to use instead so I'm back.  Just don't hold your breath between postings.

Anyone that knows me knows that I don't have a lot of spare cash to use for crafting...or anything else for that matter.  That's how come I like to use off cuts and I never throw anything away.  Not that I can always find it when I come to want it, but you can't blame a girl for trying.  One of the things I never throw away are old cards.  I've got a huge box of them.  They are handy for using the greetings or the inserts sometimes make pretty backing papers.  Not to mention the topper potential.  Recently, I seem to be recycling a lot.  My desk is often not visible below a pile of old cards.

I made a whole set of notelets out of the pink mum card.  I just cut small squares out and matted them before putting them on some of my off cut notelets.  The swirly pattern was quite abstract and I just added a couple of pearls in one corner of each.  They looked really pretty but my camera was dead at the time.

Here are a few cards that I did managed to take photos of.

I was really pleased with the results and they hardly cost me anything to make.  Just don't let on to anyone I might be sending them to.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Playing with Offcuts

Firstly, I apologise for not  blogging for a fair few months.  Unfortunately, my camera gave up the ghost a while ago.  I was beginning to despair when I found that one of our old mobile phones has a macro setting.  The quality isn't quite as good as my camera but it does mean I can blog once again.

As I make quite a lot of cards during the year I have found that the cheapest way to do this is to buy my card in bulk and cut my own card blanks.  My favourite being the 5x5 inch square.  If I cut these from an A4 sheet of card I end up with loads of offcuts at just over 3inches wide.  Originally I put them all to one side and used them to rubber stamp onto.  If I was careful not to add to much water I could colour them with watercolour pencils with a fair degree of success.  Then, one day, my very generous friend Jeanette brought her Cricut machine out for me to play with.  I'd never used one before, being an avid fan of the Wizard die cutting machine, but I was really impressed when she showed me how to cut little gift bags.  I was so impressed I spent the rest of the afternoon and a good portion of my card stock cutting lots of them. 

You see, the reason I'd cut so many was that I knew just what to fill them with.  If I turned my offcuts into little square cards they would fit nicely in the bag when it was made up.  I worked out that I could use photocopier paper to create a little envelope (if you measure it carefully the off cut from the envelope can be cut to make an insert for the notelet) and you could get five notelets and envelopes in a bag.

I decorated them very simply - if you look closely you can see what else I used the Cricut to cut -

and put them together as little gift sets.

And here's another one that I made earlier

They don't have to be decorated with die cuts, I've made sets with my favourite rubber stamps.  I decorate the bags on the back and front with the same design as on the notelets.  All of the ones I've made so far have been the same on all 5 cards but I'm toying with the idea of a set with themed quotes on.  If I can get together 5 quotes on a certain theme I may give it a go.  Of course, I'll have to cut a lot more 5x5 card blanks first.  I'm going to need all those offcuts.

Love Dawn x

Been playing

I thought I'd better get used to playing around with the computer if I was going to stick with this blogging lark.  I've been on so many blogs by other crafters and they all look so much smarter than mine.  Anyway, I was trawling the web for digistamps and found myself on Digital 2 for Tuesday's blog ( they have vintage digis from old magazines and can be found  here).  At the top of their page I found a link to 'the cutest blog on the block' and decided to play.  Their site can be found  here.  They have some lovely blog backgrounds and - more importantly - really easy to follow instructions.  So now my blog has a brand new look.  I hope you like it.

Love Dawn x

A bit of a sew and sew

I must be the worlds worst blogger.  When I signed up I had wonderful intentions of blogging regularly and sharing my craft projects.  I now see that I haven't posted for several months.  It's about time I altered that.

Some time ago I was very lucky to receive my mother-in-law's old sewing machine.  Now it has been years since I did any serious sewing (over 20 years, in fact).  As this was the case I duly popped the machine into my craft room and there it sat.  It sat for quite some time as I went through various blogs and galleries on websites, noting what good use other people made of their sewing machines.  I even used a pricking tool and a ruler to make a lovely border around a card, which I then painstakingly stitched by hand.  Finally, I decided that enough was enough and, after an hour with a reel of thread and the instruction booklet I can say that using a sewing machine is like falling off a bike.  When you've done it once it all comes flooding back to you when you do it again.

Here is the rather shaky result.

and a closer view

and finally, the machine that brought it all back to me

Thanks to my mother-in-law for my new crafting tool. 

If anyone is interested in the lovely tulip stamp it is a free digistamp from Bird's Card Blog.  It can be found here along with some other lovely florals.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x