Decoupage flower building & using flower cut-out to create patterned background

So here is the card I hinted at yesterday! An exceptionally quick card to put together, with lovely rich summery colours…the weather here isn’t being very obliging, so I’m putting some sunshine in my craft room instead ;0)

Using pre-cut decoupage flowers, I’ll show you how to build the flower, and use the discarded cut-out shape to create your own background on your base card. This is a super-fast card, and super effective, especially when you consider how easy it is to create and achieve this effect!


The flower papers I used are medium weight – just perfect for being strong enough not to tear and malleable enough to be teased into the shape you want. These papers are (unusually!) UK only papers, but I’m sure there are other just as delectable papers out there in other countries for you to try this technique.

The video below is shorter than normal, reflecting how quick this card was to create. I hope you enjoy watching this, and would love to hear any comments or questions that you may have. If you nip over to YouTube you can subscribe to my channel and rate the video to let other’s know what you thought of it.

Thanks for watching! ;0)

A Sneak Peak…

Here’s a sneak peak of my next project…I am currently editing the video, so hopefully will publish the whole project plus video tomorrow. Watch this space!!

Circle of Friends Award from the lovely Jane

The terms of this particular award are:-

1. Make reference to award and publish it on your blog
2. Share 5 things you like to do
3. And share with 10 blogs
4. Inform each blog

 

Ok the 5 things I like to do (in no particular order) are:

1. Designing & making cards (of course!)
2. Watching a film/going to the cinema with my husband & best friends
3. Visiting my Mom & Dad
4. Reading. I’ve always got my nose in some book or another ;0)
5. Going on holiday somewhere warm: sun, sea & sand…

And the 10 fantastic blogs I’d like to share this award with are:

Mel's, Julie’s, Zoe’s, Monica’s, Andrea’s, Mujka’s, Anthonette’s, Kath’s, Michelle’s, and last but certainly not least Kerry’s.

I regularly visit all of these people’s blogs and just love what I see, so I hope you all take this as a big thanks from me as an appreciation of your talent and dedication to sharing your work with the crafting world! Cheers to you all! ;0)

Enjoy…today’s cake day!

This tiny but scrumptious looking Forever Friends iced bun stamp was calling to be used on a card. I couldn’t think of any way of fitting it into a card without it being the main focal point, so I made a smallish 4” x 4” card so as not to overwhelm the stamped image.


I also recycled some lavender cardstock that I’d made a mistake on creating another card. It was not quite big enough for the base card for this card, so I added another bit of lilac cardstock on the bottom and decorated it. This way it fit into my design for the card and used up some ‘mistakes’ from previously.

I have also done a video tutorial on creating this card, below. It is a very fast card, especially if you keep the base card whole (with the right size cardstock!) so this basic design could easily be reproduced for Christmas cards, substituting the iced bun/cupcake and colours for something Christmassy!

You could get 20 done in no time at all, by creating the competent pieces en masse then assembling all 20 at the end.

Don’t forget to click on the HQ button in the right hand corner after pressing play. Hope you enjoy the video, please hop over to YouTube to rate & subscribe. Thanks for watching ;0)

Creating a background using digital stamps

This card was inspired by a recent card I saw on Kristina's blog. I know it looks nothing like her card, but as soon as I saw hers, the design and colour scheme for this card came straight to mind, and this is almost exactly how I imagined it, apart from the pink heart. I don’t like the pink heart a whole lot, but I thought I’d show you guys the finished result anyway…

I think if I was making this again, I would probably print out another, larger heart onto the lavender cardstock, embossing in silver, then layer beneath the smaller dark purple heart. I may even change this card to reflect that as I’m really not feeling that pink heart. Or just stick with the single dark purple heart as the whole focal piece?

Anyway, the whole point of this was to use Mujka’s digital design for the background left hand side (above), as this is what sprang to mind when watching Kristina make her card I talked about earlier.

I simply love this ornate pattern, which was originally designed for wedding RSVPs and invites etc. So that’s why I think it works well on this love themed card. You can download this for free at MyGrafico once their new site is up and running again. I’m already looking forward to it as I’m sure it’s going to be great! :0)
Tonight I sat and planned about 8 cards in my sketchbook (!) so I have a load to get making, and a rare day to myself tomorrow, so I will have fun playing & get a few of them videoed to show over the next few weeks.

MIA

I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m back from my short break, hence the total lack of posts – heck, I couldn’t even get a mobile phone signal when I was on holiday. Weird, but peaceful. And this is where we were….beautiful, doncha think?

I’ll be back at my craft desk shortly, so watch this space! ;0)

Head above the rest!

Silly me, I posted my video up on YouTube on Thursday, but I forgot to post it here on my blog - d'oh! I've had a busy weekend in the garden so nothing new since then either...but I thought I'd share this card with you in more detail.

I went fully digital for this card, and that includes the background - this is printed straight from Photoshop. I've always wondered how to do a repetitive background, without having to draw each and every bit of it, and I came across this video which showed me how to use the grid/tile function in CS4 - brilliant! So it was dead easy, and very quick too, once you know how!

Then I printed out the giraffe from MyGrafico.com using these digital stamps onto specially prepared paper. This is a great technique I learnt from Mel (one of many of her brilliant ideas) and it makes embossing digital images a whizz.

First, paint your card (patterned/coloured/plain) with a thin coat of acrylic gel medium (in matte) and leave to dry, or force-dry with a heat gun. Print onto this as normal, but be ready to hit it with your clear embossing powder AS SOON AS it comes out of the printer. Then just emboss like a normal rubber/acrylic stamp. This means that the ink is 'set' and will not smudge/smear as you colour the image in. The gel medium also dries completely clear, so you can totally go to town with this technique using patterned paper and embossing resist techniques.

I used my spangly new copic markers and I love the way they colour on this card coated in gel medium (it's different to colouring on normal cardstock, but it's very effective - I'd say it's even easier and quicker this way!).

So, hope you like the card, the video is below. As usual, don't forget to click on the HQ button in the right hand corner after pressing play. Please head over to YT to rate & subscribe - thanks for watching ;0)

A little birdie told me...

Hi! No video tutorial today I'm afraid...I wanted to get my first copic marker card up on this blog so I was in with a chance of winning copic markers - THE MOST FANTASTIC blog candy ever!! Whoever wins this will be soooo lucky, cos copic markers are just awesome....I've put off buying some for ages, cos they're so expensive and I thought "You know, what's all the fuss about" so I ordered a couple from Click on Crafts (£1.99 each plus £1.50 postage for 8 of the little beauties).

And I'm so glad I did....it was so much fun playing around with these things; why oh why didn't I get some before?? I am now an official worshipper of these beauties.....still wish they were cheaper, but hey, a gals gotta treat herself occasionally, right?

I'll be back later in the week to show a similar card to demonstrate this copic marker technique using digital stamps. For some absolutely gorgeous digital stamping techniques, hop over to Mel's blog - she really is the Queen of Digi stamping techniques ;0)