Happy Birthday

Just wanted to show you a card I made for my friend’s birthday. I didn’t record it at the time, so I made another for y’all and videoed that one. It’s below. Enjoy!

Watch below | Watch at YouTube

Happy Birthday!

This card was a lot of fun to make, and it is a really quick card to make in a birthday emergency! I really enjoyed using the big alphabet stamps, stamping over letters and squishing them all together so they’d fit onto the card. I like this effect as it gives a lot of movement to the card. 

The flowers were cut out of some patterned paper and I used my embossing tool to create the 3d effect of the petals.

The swirls were stamped onto the cream c.s. in versamark ink, and embossed in gold e.p. This gave a less vivid gold colour, that looks more yellowy than anything else. If you want a more obvious gold sheen, then you should ink up in gold, and emboss in gold e.p. on top of this.

This card is now for sale at My Folksy Shop!

The video is below, and as usual, you can head over to my YT Channel to rate & subscribe and to watch in HD. Thanks for watching!

BLOG CANDY {Giveaway} - One Year in Video Blogging

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED. PLEASE CHECK BACK FOR THE WINNERS TO BE ANNOUNCED SHORTLY!

This project marks my first anniversary in video blogging!

So to celebrate I am giving away the project I have created to one lucky winner, and also one set of the digital files & stamps I used to make it to another winner.

To enter the competition, please leave a comment in the following places:
{1} under the video entry at YouTube
{2} on the video post at MyGrafico.com
and
{3} comment on this blog entry.
To improve your chances of winning, you may enter three times by leaving one comment at each  site!




If you can’t wait until the draw date, you can purchase the sets by Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff from MyGrafico by clicking on these links:
Recipe Cards & Folio SVG files (for Cricut)
Recipe Cards Digital Stamp set

Good luck!

Rules: You can enter 3 times by commenting on each site (here at my blog, YouTube and MyGrafico) To make this fair, please submit only one comment per person per site – all comments will be checked =) International entries welcome

The closing date is midnight (GMT) on Saturday 27th February. 

The video is below as usual. Don’t forget to subscribe over at my YT Channel and to follow my blog to see my future projects and video tutorials =)

Happy Birthday 2U

This card was for my husband’s birthday, so I spent some time thinking about what colours he likes, then realised he only likes black and maybe a splash of occasional grey/green, so this card was born! I used the ‘Jane’s script’ stamps by Woodware and I have to say I’ll be using these quite a lot in the future because they’re gorgeous!
The ‘U’ was made using old metal sequins I took off an old t-shirt that went wrong when I washed it. Nothing like recycling, right?!

My next few cards are going to be girly – my best friend’s 30th and my Mom’s 60th. Two biggies, so two very special cards. So watch this space!

Video below in HD goodness. Enjoy!! ;0)

Butterfly Garden

I wanted to have a play around with something 3d for this card…so I used vellum to create this really vibrant colourful butterfly. I’ve used some digital stamps and clipart from MyGrafico. First off, I prepared the vellum with 4 or 5 layers of acrylic matte gel medium. This was to strengthen the vellum, so it would be able to stand up to being the 3d focal point of this card without going flat/creased or (worse still) tearing, due to the vellum being so delicate. I used gel medium because it dries matte and clear. If you’re on a budget, you can always use PVA glue on the reverse of the design as this will do the same thing, but of course it will dry shiny not matte.

I used clear embossing powder to ‘set’ the digital print out on the vellum, but then I re-heated the clear embossing powder and whacked some black e.p. over the top. Doing it this way instead of hitting it with the black e.p. first off, gives you a much messier, splotchy effect.

Depending on what you’re going for depends which way you approach this. I liked the effect – after all, butterflies don’t tend to be subtle, pastel coloured things – they’re usually vibrant and gorgeous in their brilliance. I like the fact that this butterfly STANDS OUT but doesn’t overpower the card. Shame I forget its antennae…was going to add some twisted wire, but I forgot. Oops!

The video below shows you the card from start to finish. I hope it’s informative and shows you how great the digi stamps and clip arts can be when combined in a project. I just love playing about with them – in fact the only thing that is holding me back now is my printer’s run out of ink! ;0)

Please hop over to YT to rate and subscribe…thanks for watching!

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)

Circle Acetate Window card

I wanted to have a go at doing some acetate windows in a card, so I thought this DCWV Latte cardstock would be perfect for the job. I picked the wildest patterned paper in the set, because I knew that having the cut-out windows would need something strong around it to balance the card.

If you don't have any suitable patterned paper, you can always stamp a repetitive background, or try printing some of your own paper using digital stamps - there's some nice freebies on MyGrafico.com - but you can make your own patterned paper too by just being inventive with the stamps you already own.

I chose the word 'smile' for this card, because it was for a friend (now family!) who was getting married on their actual birthday - BIG day. She had lots to smile about on that day and she looked stunning (bless you, Vicky!).

As usual, I did loads of faux stitching, but it worked really well on this card. I also decorated the envelope with some of the circle cut outs that I'd taken from the card base and from the purple & blue window frames.

A pretty labour-intensive card, but it was just right for who I needed it for, so was worth the effort.

Below is the card tutorial, as usual, don't forget to click on the HQ button in the right hand corner after pressing play....please head over to my YouTube channel to rate & subscribe. Thanks for watching ;0)

Smile! Kristina's 50th CIC!!

Wow! 50 colour challenges!!! That's some serious dedication to the blogging world, and we all love and appreciate Kristina's inspirational designs. She dedicates a serious amount of time to her blogging and YouTube folllowers and I can only live in awe...I'm lucky if I get to post once a week, and I've only managed to take part in one of Kristina's colour challenges before (see this post).

I decided to do another circular card and add some big scallops around the edge.  I added some doodling - in brown ink - so no rules broken!! ;0) just to give the edge a little more more interest. 

I also loved Kristina's idea of stapling and folding ribbon as she beautifully demonstrates on her card here.  It was a bit fiddly at first, but I soon got used to it and I loved the effect! I will definitely be using this technique again!

I jazzed up a bit of plain vellum by staining it with the same yellow colour as the yellow base card. I love the way this gives off a yellow 'shadow' when the light shines through it.

Below is the video tutorial of me making this card. It is best viewed in high quality, so press play, then click on the HQ button in the bottom right of the video. If you enjoy it, please go over to my YouTube page and rate & subscribe. Thanks for watching ;0)

A crafty weekend with Mom...

 

Mom and I got together this weekend for a few days just us girls. Mom is very new to cardmaking, so she asked me to give her a  few tips and show her some techniques...so we went to my local craft shop, spent far too much on some lovely craft goodies, and then between us we came up with these designs.....my wonderful talented Mom picks things up quick, don't you think?!?

The 'congrats' was using chipboard stickers, then inked them up with some red ink, poured clear embossing powder over the wet ink, heated it, then stuck the stickers onto the card. Beware when using this technique - the combination of the embossing powder and the heating, usually ends up that the stickiness of the stickers is lost, but that's quickly solved with some glue!

This card is simply demonstrating how you can use a few basic colours, lifted with some patterned paper, to create a really quick and effective card. Mom enjoyed making this - she LOVES those chipboard stickers ;o)

This is a close up of the card below. Mom wanted to have a play with my Cuttlebug, so we took some patterned paper and a really expensive (not!) cereal box and die cut this flower shape then adhered it to the card using a matching brad. If you cut the paper and the cardboard at the same time, you get a really crisp die cut, that you just glue together, giving your patterned paper the strength it needs to be a stand-alone topper. I'm still convinced that the best 'chipboard' you can use in the Cuttlebug is cut up cereal boxes - and it's far cheaper than buying the proper stuff by the sheet! 

The stamped image is done by inking up the stamp, stamping it once on a bit of scrap paper, then stamping it onto the card. This gives a more subtle stamp effect - great for building a background with.

I intend on using some of the techniques we used here and doing a couple of videos, but I couldn't do any over at the weekend, cos we had to use my dining room to do our crafting - my craft area is too small for two people.

Well I hope you've enjoyed seeing what me and my mom got up to over the weekend, check back later this week for a video tutorial - I filmed a couple tonight, but I need to edit and publish them to YouTube and that takes a while....

Video Tutorial for Flowery Flourish

This is just a quick update to this recent blog post...I've since done a video tutorial which I have embedded below.

Hope you enjoy it!

Best wishes flower card tutorial

Hi - I've finally got my video set up all up and running! It's been a nightmare to do - how to get a camera balanced over your desk on something stable...it was a bit of designing and a trip down B&Q then a crash course in woodwork and now I have something that doesn't look so great, but it works like a dream :-)

And for my first project, I made you all this tutorial...

...please note the change in YouTube username to 'whimsicalwendy' as I decided that as my name had changed anyway because of getting married last year, I would take this opportunity to streamline my blog and YouTube to have them with similar ID names. Feel free to subscribe to my videos, I intend on doing many more and your support would be very helpful ;-)

Boys boys boys

I've had a bit of a black and white theme over the last few days, and I'm really loving the monochromatic effects! Black and white cards are perfect for men, and this is no execption - this is for my big brother, so going for the 'industrial' look was a good starting point to get going with, but I softened it by using circles.

This was such a quick card to make! And he loved it by the way - success!! I still want to run a few video tutorials but I've still not got the web cam working....it's so frustrating!