Instead of Ironing Blogspot

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Penny Black Cat Frolic - a glittery birthday card

Hi blogging friends

I am feeling pretty yuk this afternoon as I had a vaccination (Diptheria, Tetanus and Whooping Cough) this morning and just want to sit on the couch and do nothing as I have a bit of a temperature and I'm tired and a bit achy - but thought I should get on with finishing off some cards as I have a lot of extended-family birthdays coming up over the next few weeks. We were at hospital all day yesterday with my loved one for routine appointments - all is going well thankfully - and we have more appointments next week so I don't have alot of crafting time at the moment. So instead of being a blob on the couch, I have been busy trying to get ahead with my cards instead of leaving them to the last minute as is often the case!

Today I am sharing a card that I made for my sister-in-law's birthday:

The image is by Penny Black (of course - what else??!!) and is called 'Cat Frolic' which I think is adorable: check out that happy smile! I stamped the image onto watercolour paper using Versafine Vintage Sepia ink and coloured it using a mix of Tombow Pens plus Watercolour pencils and a paintbrush. I lightly chalked around the image with blue chalk and added Kindyglitz Crystalina glitter glue to the flowers, butterflies and cat's cheeks. I used my Arrows Border punch to punch 5 tiny little pink hearts out of pink glitter cardstock (ie: the leftover punchies which look like tiny little hearts to me) and glued them around the image.

I went for a really simple layout - one of my "go to" layouts when I can't think properly like I am now: my head feels like it is stuffed with cotton wool!

The tag and sentiment are from My Favourite Things: Notched Tag and Die set. The heart on the sentiment is a die from the same set. I picked a pink flower from the designer paper to diecut the heart then gave that the glitter-treatment too around the edges. Here is a close-up:

The ribbon was attached in 2 separate elements and the bow itself was made using my Bow Easy. I added Fray Stop to the cut ends to stop them from fraying.

Lastly, I added the 3 x pink Candi Dots using dimensionals.

After I finished my card, I thought the brown ink on the image/sentiment looked a little insipid so I went over the image/sentiment using a Faber-Castell Dark Sepia Artist pen which I was far happier with.

Finished size is 5-1/4" square or 135mm if you are metric.

Challenges:

I am entering my card in the following challenges -

Incy Wincy Designs Challenge - Birthdays
Cute Card Thursday - Challenge 310 - Springtime

Thanks for visiting my blog today - and thank you for any comments that you care to leave: they make my day!

Jocelyn

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Penny Black Frolic 3972K wood-mount, Sentiment - My Favorite Things from Notched Tag stamp set

Ink: Versafine Vintage Sepia

Designer paper: American Crafts Yes Please - Play 12" x 12"

Accessories: Big Shot, Spellbinder Decorative Labels 1 dies, My Favorite Things Notched Tag die set, 140lb watercolour paper, Tombow Pens, Faber-Castell + Lyra watercolour pencils, small #2 round paintbrush, Kaisercolour chalks, Candi dots, dimensionals, 1 cm wide ribbon, Bow Easy, Fray Stop, Kindyglitz Crystalina glitter glue, cardstock - pink glitter, duck egg blue

Punches: EK Success Arrows border

Monday, February 24, 2014

Tatty Teddy Valentine's Day card

Hi blogging friends

Today I am sharing the Valentine's Day card that I gave to my daughter. I couldn't share it before Valentine's Day as my daughter looks at my blog and I didn't want to spoil the surprise! I really love how these days Valentine's Day has also become an opportunity to tell your nearest and dearest how much you love them. My daughter gave me some flowers, a card and a little container of handmade heart flowers - ♥ so sweet ♥ We made heart-shaped shortbread biscuits together and iced them with pink icing and added sprinkles.....mmmm, yum!

My daughter LOVES the 'Me to You' Tatty Teddy - she is crazy for anything Tatty Teddy (me too!) - so it was an easy choice as to what image I would choose for my card:

A while ago, Docrafts brought out a 'Me to You' Tatty Teddy Valentine's Day range of papers, kits, diecuts and paper-tole (or decoupage if you are in the UK) and I snapped up a couple of packs on special at one of the Craft Shows I went to last year. This particular card was made using the 'With Love A5 Decoupage Card Kit' which includes the cardstock, image, sentiment and designer paper - the only thing I added were the red glitter hearts either side of the sentiment.

The photo shows that the card front is cut around the image and the designer paper is attached to the card inside.

Here is a close-up pic so you can see the dimension on Tatty Teddy - the layers came already diecut so it was super-easy to just pop them out and trim off any daggy bits and put them together with dimensionals:

The sentiment is up on dimensionals and the red glitter hearts are stickers which I bought from Riot Art and Craft.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day

Jocelyn

Card Recipe:

Stamps and Ink: None

Designer paper: Included in Card Kit

Accessories: Docrafts 'Me to You' Tatty Teddy 'With Love' A5 decoupage card kit, dimensionals, red glitter hearts - Sticker Cafe - Glitter Icon Stickers Item No. 416/206190 (from Riot Art and Craft)

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Somebunny to love Paper Tole Christmas card

Hi blogging friends

Well, the summer school holidays are over and my daughter is back at school. The weather has been incredibly hot and dry and my garden looks brown. Many of my plants have been burnt from the fierce temperatures - and some plants look dead

I am heartily sick of the heat and will be glad when Autumn comes! We had a busy holiday time and saw a couple of kid's movies - Frozen was my favourite - and went to the beach on one day trip - we did shopping together and went out for lunch/afternoon tea and had lots of fun times. We also had some visits to hospital for my loved one (just routine appointments).

We also had a major upheaval at home as my daughter moved from her small bedroom into my Craft Room which is much bigger; I moved into the other spare bedroom which my husband was using as a Hobby Room; and, my husband has moved into my daughter's old bedroom. Talk about the house being upside down and a GIANT mess! I still haven't quite finished my Craft Room yet as I am still putting the finishing touches on making my space practical and usable. The built-in wardrobe is alot smaller than my old room so it has been a bit of a juggle to get things to fit but be easily accessible. I find that if I can't see something, I forget about it and don't use it.

And of course, if you are going to pull things out of the cupboards, you may as well go through them (even though I did that a year ago) and sort out what you want to keep or donate. Plus I thought I would try my hand at selling on EBay as I had a box full of different things that were still in pristine condition and wondered if I could turn them into a few $$$. I also had an antique Remington typewriter which needed some TLC and was so heavy that I think it would hold the house down in a cyclone - and listed that as well. My husband is a seasoned seller on EBay so he helped me alot. I was quite nervous about it but I am pleased to say that I have sold quite a few things - even the antique typewriter (which surprised me!). Anyway, I shall move onto my card............

I thought I would start off the year with a Christmas card for the Splitcoaststampers Christmas February Fan Club Challenge of "Red" which can be embellishments, ribbon, cardstock - anything you like. Now, my camera hates photographing red - it never comes out the right colour for some reason, so I went for a card that had some red in it and accented it with red rhinestones rather than using cardstock or papers with lots of red.

The papertole (or decoupage if you are in the UK) image and sentiment that I used - called 'Somebunny to Love' by artist Adam Pescott - came free with the UK Magazine Quick Cards Made Easy September 2013 edition. The set has quite a few images so you can make multiples of the same design and I think they are so sweet. And bonus that they were diecut too: although I did trim around the edges more because I thought the finished result would look better. The designer papers are from Lili of the Valley from their Frosty Christmas pad.

The snowflakes were diecut and I glued down just the centres and bent up the pointy bits (sorry, I don't know what they are called LOL!) a little to give the snowflakes some dimension then added red rhinestones to the centres. The large snowflake is by Simon Says Stamp and the small ones are by Impression Obsession.

Here is a close-up so you can see the dimension on the card:

Challenges:

Apart from the SCS Christmas February Fan Club Challenge, I am entering my card in the following challenges -

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - February - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by - have a fab weekend!

Jocelyn

Card Recipe:

Stamps: None

Ink: None

Designer Paper: Lili of the Valley Frosty Christmas 8" x 8" pad

Accessories: Lifestyle Circle and Scalloped Circle dies, Big Shot, dimensionals, Kaisercraft red rhinestones, Papertole/Decoupage images from Quick Cards Made Easy - September 2013 edition, Simon Says Stamp Kate's Snowflake SSSD111309 die, Impression Obsession Die100-F snowflake die set, Perfect Layers Tools, cardstock - white

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

My favourite cards from 2013

Hi blogging friends

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Have you made any New Year's Resolutions? I only have a couple - one of which is the same as last year's which is to use more of my stash of designer papers rather than buying a whole lot more. Of course, I will still buy the occasional small pad or a few sheets: it is nice to shout myself some new papers now and then.

My 2nd Resolution is to continue to play along in the Splitcoaststampers Monthly Christmas Fan Club Challenges each month. I started in July 2013 when I was asked to be a Guest Designer for that month and have kept playing along each month since. I was so pleased to have a good little stash of Christmas cards ready to send out by the time 1st December came around.

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As many bloggers do at this time of year, I am sharing my favourite cards from 2013.

My first card is a Get Well decoupage/paper tole card that I made for my brother-in-law in January using the Docrafts Wellington Bear range that I love so much. I have made alot of masculine cards using this range!