Cheers

Good morning all, Friday at last, and today is our last day of blogging, for now anyway. We will still continue to follow the blogs we love, and still use Pinterest to share our cards, and for lots of crafty ideas. You can follow us here: pinterest

Today is my son's 28th birthday, and as he is partial to the odd glass of a well known stout, as we all are!!! I thought I would make him this card.

The idea came from the little Toucan included in the June 2019 My Monthly Hero Kit, from Hero Arts. As soon as I saw him, I remembered the Guinness adverts with the toucan, so decided to give it a go.

I stamped him with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, and then coloured him with Copic markers, then I cut him out with his matching die.

For the glass, I used one of the coffee cups from the August 2018 Hero Arts Kit, I cut this from black card, and then again from white card, then cut the white one down to just sit at the top of the glass.

I wrote my sentiment on the laptop, and printed a harp image using the Laser jet printer, then foiled them with the Minc Machine and Rose Gold Foil. I cut the sentiment with an MFT Fishtail Banner Die, and added the rest of the sentiment in black card using M & C Boutique Alphabet Dies.

I hope you like it, take care and have a great weekend.

xxx

Foiled Christmas Cards

Good morning all, I hope you are having a good start to the week. I have a few cards for you today, but as I made all of them by printing text and images, and then foiling them, I thought I would put them all together in one blog post.

When I want a specific card, and don't have the stamps or dies, I always turn to my PC and use either SVG cut files or make something up on a word doc. Most of these cards are files that I have bought for my Silhouette Cameo machine, but as I rarely use it, I use them to print for foiling.

I take elements from different files and add them together to make the cards unique and mine, then I make sure everything is coloured black, with black lines and print them with the laser printer.

Then I can customise them using different colours, sentiments and embellishments.

Like this little reindeer, that I made a few cards with, but I did them all with different coloured foils and card.

I love this glitzy one, but foiled cards are very difficult to photograph due to shine, and shadows, so you don't really get how pretty it is in real life.

There are lots of images that can be used, and lots that you can write up yourself to make different designs, and I find it really fun.

I hope you like them, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Anniversary Giraffes

Good morning all, I hope you have had a good week, and are looking forward to a crafty weekend.

Yesterday was my niece and her husband's fourth wedding anniversary, and this is one of the cards I made for them.

I used my Silhouette Studio software to design the card, which I then printed with the laser printer and foiled using the Minc machine.

I love how versatile the cut images are on this software. This was an elephant and giraffe cut file that I bought ages ago. But because of the software, you can use just certain elements from them.

So for this one I just kept the Giraffe fill image, which I then duplicated and mirrored, so that they could be nose to nose.

When I'm doing this I change my images line colour and fill colour to black, so that when I print it on the laser printer I get a really nice dark image to foil. Then It's just a case of picking the foil colours I want. This time I used Rose Gold Heidi Swapp Foil, and Red Deco Foil.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

75th Birthday Card

Good morning all. I hope you are having a good week so far. I am back to work today after 2 weeks off, but what I really want to do is sit in my craft room and play 😏 lol.

Today's card is one I made for my mum for a friend's birthday. Unfortunately, I didn't hear the bit of the conversation where she told me it was a he, not a she!!!!! So after spending time creating this, I then had to quickly alter a different card that was more suitable lol.

I used the papers and dies from the Simon Says Stamp Brushstroke Messages Card Kit from October 2017. I love this kit as it is so versatile, and the flowers and leaves look very different if cut from different papers.

I first wrote the sentiment on my PC, and printed it with the laser printer, and then foiled it with the Minc Machine, using Decofoil Rose Gold Foil.

Then I cut this out with a Stitched Rectangle die, and I laid 3 strips of white card in different widths diagonally across, using 3 layers of each for dimension. Then I placed thin strips of copper card in between.

I arranged my flowers and leaves to one side of the card strips using glue and foam tape, and then popped it all on a plain card blank. I did consider a scattering of sequins, but in the end decided to leave it quite simple.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Have a flamin-good day

Good morning all, I hope you are having a good week so far. Today's card is another of the ones I made for Jude's birthday last week.

I love this Flamingo die from Creative Dies. It's such an easy die to use, cuts beautifully every time and is big enough to be used as a main image. For this card I cut the die twice with bright pink textured card, and stuck them together for dimension.

For the background I used a Poppy Crafts Geometric background die cut from white card, and I placed this over a black panel, cut with a Wonky Stitched Ellements die from Avery Elle.

I popped them all on to a bright pink note card, and then typed a sentiment on my PC.

I printed the sentiment on the laser printer and then ran it through our Minc Machine using pink foil.

Then I cut the sentiment out with an MFT Stitched Banner Die, and matted it on to a larger black die cut. Then all it needed was a few pink gems to finish it off.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

You Rock

Good morning all, I hope you have had a nice crafty weekend. I didn't manage to get much achieved this weekend, but I have had a little play lol.

Saturday was my eldest grandson's 12th birthday, and this is one of the cards I made for him. I started with the background, using an image from my Silhouette software, and printed it on the laser printer. Then I ran it through the Minc machine with silver foil.

The main image is from a recent issue of Creative Stamping magazine, I stamped it with black pigment ink, and then heat embossed it with black embossing powder.

I cut the image out with an Avery Elle Wonky Stitched Rectangle die, and then raised it with craft foam above the shiny background.

Then I gave it a red mat before popping it all on a black 6 x 6 card blank.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Foiling and Stamping

Good morning all, and happy Friday. I hope you have all had the best Christmas and enjoyed time with family and friends. We have had a busy but extremely nice Christmas with lots of gorgeous food, gifts and the odd drink. But mainly it has been about spending time with our family and enjoying the look on the grand kids faces when they have been receiving their gifts. 

Apologies for being absent for the last week, but we have been ultra busy and decided to take a break and make the most of the time while people were off work and able to visit etc. But we will be back next week with a round up of all the final Christmas cards that we made, but for today, here's the one I made for Alan's sister, which turned out so well that I repeated this for his other sister, and brothers.

I wrote a sentiment on the PC, printed it on the Laser printer and then foiled it with red foil and my Minc machine.

Then I used the Altenew Build A Flower - Poinsettia set, and stamped around the sentiment using Altenew inks.

I used a fern branch from the Altenew Poinsettia and Pine set to give it some extra colour, and then added a few pearls to finish it off.

Then I added the panel to a shiny red mat and put it all on an A5 red card blank.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Hedgehugs and Kisses

Good morning all, I hope you are having a good week so far. Today's card is the one I made for Alan for his recent birthday. 

I love the look of loose watercolour cards, but I can't quite get it yet, but I enjoy playing and the end result isn't too bad.

I used a watercolour paper and stamped the hedgehogs and sentiment from the Clearly Besotted Let's Roll set, using black Archival ink.

Then I used Zig Clean Colour pens to watercolour the hedgehogs and give the background a colour wash, in a very loose heart shape.

The silver sentiment is a Cut and Make die, which I foiled using silver Decofoil and the Minc machine. Then I layered the panel with red card and added it to a plain ivory card blank.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx