Fusion Card Challenge - Thank You

Hey,

Welcome to another fantastic Fusion Card Challenge.

This time with have 'Thank You' as a theme. As always both the sketch and the inspiration image are awesome.

Which will you try?

I loved both, so I fused them!

I liked the idea of a 'Thank You Dog', so I used the awesome Avery Elle 'Hot Dog' set, I think this stamp with the dog carrying a gift is my fave one.

I stamped it onto a die-cut circle - the die is 'Brilliant Rings' by Poppy Stamps and Jennifer Maguire 'enabled' me to buy it last year with her 'Fave Dies of 2020' video. This set of dies get a lot of use, I love the extra detail on the edges.

I paired my image with x2 paper scraps to match the sketch and added one of my fave go to's - a simple sentiment strip by Taylored Expressions.

Love this fun and simple card.

Make sure you check out all the rest of the inspiration by the DT over at the Fusion challenge blog, and play along with your own creation! When playing along you may use the sketch OR the photo to inspire your makes. OR, if you are feeling adventurous, you can fuse them together (see what I did there!).

Can't wait to see your makes. 

Challenge ends on May 25th.

Cx

OCC: Spring Card Camp Days 1-10

Hey,

Happy Monday!

I have spent a happy 20 days taking part in the Online Card Classes 'Spring Card Camp'.

It was fun and the theme was 2 from 1, so I ended up with a TON of cards LOL.. like that is a problem right now, I am Hallmark (I worked out that I have made approx 250-300 cards in the 7 weeks we have been home - WTAF).

I can't show everything in this post, so I'll show you some of the cards from days 1 to 10 and then I'll do a part two.

The main photo is the cards from Day 4, I didn't show the first x3 days as I am not a massive fan of the cards I made on those days.
Day 4 was taught by Julie Ebersole - who I LOVE. I couldn't quite do exactly what Julie had done, as at that time my Big Shot had broken and I was waiting on the new one! Thank god for a tiny die-cutter meaning I could still die-cut smaller elements.
I really love these cards, it was a great way to use the Recollections Cactus Love set and I combined it with x2 fun sentiments - left is by Flora & Fauna, right is Hero Arts.

Day 5 was fun and taught by Debby Hughes, another big craft crush of mine. It was a bit fiddly, but I am pleased with the end results.

Day 6 was great, I got a TON of cards out of this one. Kristina Werner supplied a great template, that I didn't use, as I don't love working with an exacto knife that much, So I made mine smaller and stuck to easy rectangle shapes to create these mini quilt cards.

Day 7 came out SO well. I loved the graduated stenciling and the foam mounted sentiments really pop, Laurie Willison was a new teacher for me and I really liked her.

Day 8 I learnt a new trick - how to create a shaker box - easily. I need to try this again with different colours, I wasn't happy with my choices, they don't flow together that well. I also fell in love with Cathy Zielske!

Day 9 - taught by Channin Pelletier - generated x6 cards and this was my fave of all the sets - the rainbow one, basically, you blend through a stencil and then spritz the stencil and get a second paler imprint. FUN. I also have never ever used that red/orange embossing powder and it is AMAZING!!

I had a lot of fun with the first 10 days and I got to learn some new things and revisit some older techniques that I haven't used in a while.

If you particularly want to know what I used to create a card, DM me, there are so many supplies here, that I only listed the main photo.

Cx

Alcohol Ink Lift...

Hey,

Happy Monday!

I hope you had a good weekend.

I have spent most of the time either cleaning my closet or playing with digital scrapbooking - new to me, but lots of fun and I am enjoying cherry-picking which photos I want to scrap. I am not into doing entire years - I just don't have the patience for that!

A while ago I was trying out the alcohol lift technique. My results were not too bad. The actual alcohol ink panel didn't come out so well as you can see, but the lift result was lovely and I made the pretty thank you card that you can see in the photo.

If you fancy giving this a go, I suggest watching this video - Jennifer McGuire does a much better job of explaining this than I ever could.

I am going to keep practicing and see if I can improve the results on the ink panel.

Cx

Alcohol Ink Techniques..

Hey,

A few weeks ago I did a fun Alcohol inks class taught by Cheiron and it really helped me to understand how to use them a bit better.

I made this little set of backgrounds and I played with the alcohol ink lift technique too.

They came out so well! So bright and varied - but heavy on the pink, as I love how bright that always is with these inks.

I made the four fun cards that you see in the main photo. The one bottom left is what you get after you do the alcohol ink technique and then stamp it off. It finally worked for me!

My supplies clockwise from top left -
30th Card - The Ink Road stamps, MFT Banner die, Misc number dies (gift from Cheiron)
HB Card - Tim Holtz stamps, Stampin' Up die
Thanks Card - Lawn Fawn scripty thanks die
Alpaca Card - Taylored Expressions stamps and dies, Hero Arts swirls background.

Jennifer Mcguire has a few cool videos on these techniques if you are interested.

Cx

Playdate part 1..

Hey,

So last Saturday as I was in London in the evening, JT and I had a great opportunity to have a long overdue face to face playdate - YAY.

I had seen this great video by Jennifer Maguire and really wanted to try it out.

The idea is to mask an image and stamp a sentiment over and over again. Genius and obvious!!

My main card uses a Clearly Besotted sentiment, stamped in black and a great yellow ink I found in JT's stash (LOVE playing with someone else's kit!). The bird is a freebie that we both have.

The next one uses the same stamp set that JT used, but a different sentiment and a bee stamp that we also both have (JT bought it for both of us). I finally got to use glossy accents to 'accentuate' something...don't ask!!

Fun times man, there are more cards to come in part 2 - later in the week, as tomorrow is MAWTT and hosted by JT!!!

Cx

Pattern Stamping...

Hey,

Jennifer McGuire recently posted a video about pattern stamping with a MISTI.

As my new mini MISTI arrived last week, I decided to have a play and I am SO super happy with the results.

Here are the cards that Jennifer made -

Gorgeous right?

I followed all of the steps carefully and found it was all pretty easy, but time consuming as I made four 4x4 panels at once!

I don't know why, but my heat embossing came out really well - I couldn't believe that I nailed it FOUR times - yay!!

Here are two more of the cards I made..

I love how they look and in 'real life' they are stunning - even if I do say so myself :)

I used a mix of stamps by Paper Smooches and Simon Says Stamp to create my pattern.

When I am home next week, I am going to try a version where you only stamp the pattern on part of the card.

Cx

Sharing Handmade Kindness....

Hey,

Jennifer McGuire is running this awesome campaign #sharehandmadekindness - this month.

Go to her blog and check it out, it is a really nice thing to do, it sums up how I feel about the craft community and it will make you feel warm and fluffy.

I have combined my card for #sharehandmadekindness week 1 with this great challenge - Fab Friday - I stumbled across it, when I was looking at various blogs and I love this weeks sketch -

My card is for my DT colleague and friend Sue B.

Sue and I have never met, but she never fails to leave a comment on my blog, send me a card or a random email. She is a genuinely sweet person. So I made this card for her to say thank you for her friendship and to accompany a little something I have been making for her...

I used a Stampin' Up set - Tap, Tap, Tap to make my card and a set of mini alpha stamps. The circle die-cut I made using 2 circle dies..

Once again a simple card, but full of love and joy for Sue.

Cx

Birthday Balloons...

Hey,

Recently I have been switching over my stamps to the Jennifer McGuire fridge binz solution.

Whilst doing this I have been looking at my stamps and coming up with ways to use them.

I was looking at this fabulous set by Simon Says Stamp -

Birthday Bits

I had this idea about how I could use the mini confetti stamp and give the balloons some movement.

The main photo today is my first version and I kept it very simple.

I die-cut a stitched rectangle (MFT) and stamped the solid balloon - doesn't matter if you get voids, it adds character. Then I stamped the black outline, slightly off, so it isn't perfect. Then I added the confetti stamp at the tip of the balloon. I finished it off with the bow stamp,

I added a Happy Birthday (Clearly Besotted) and a number to the balloons - a very subtle way of celebrating an age..

I loved it so much I made another one, for another friend - but this one is a different age :)

These cards are so simple and it's fun to go back and revisit your stash - even the parts that are not that old.

Cx