Baby personalised frame

I had noticed about a year ago how popular personalised frames had become and have recently got a few more to make as they make such great gifts.

The preference was for a girly design and ladybirds to be included. I tried to keep it clean and simple to focus on the details. 3 ladybirds have been cut out and stuck on using foam dots to add a little dimension. Just to finish off, I decided to add some plain gems for a little added extra.

Here is a better view of the ladybirds dimension. I printed off the main image including the ladybirds and added more on top. I think it looks good this way for that 3D effect. The biggest pain with this project was the mount. The mount that came with the frame was too small for my design so I use a scalpel to hand cut the mount bigger. That took at least an hour as its the first time I had attempted such a thing, although I think it turned out satisfactory.

I've got a few more to do in the next month so stay tuned!

New Ink pads :-)

Yay! I bought some new ink pads. As I have a limited budget, I opted for the Memento dew drops which are cheap but still a good make. I already had three dew drop ink pads so I knew they were of good quality. The best way to bulk up my ink pad stash!

These were stamped using the flower part of a sympathy rubber stamp from Docrafts. I noticed that the Angel pink came out a lot lighter than expected, as well as the Morocco and Denube blue. 

Watch this space for cards made with these colours :-)

You & Me

Finally had a chance to play with my new Clearly besotted stamps sets. Here are a couple of Valentines cards I managed to make with them.

 Using the geometric style II die I made a mask and used distress inks fired brick and broken china to colour the arrows. Using the same inks, I inked up the you & me stamp from the say it in style set and cut it out and stuck on with foam pads. 

 Three gems from Dovercraft finish it off and adhered to a pearlescent red card stock.

 I did the same same thing here with the you & me stamp as the last card but added another sentiment underneath from the same set. A couple more gems from Dovercraft. This time I used some red glitter card stock ( from fizzy moon, Dovercraft) to frame the card. I noticed lately how glitter card stock seems to be coming into fashion so there might be some more showing up on this blog soon :-)

I really like how these turned out. I didn't want to make the traditional romantic cards this year, but something different and I think it has been achieved

Ink pad guide

I decided I wanted to make a visual guide to the stock of ink pads as I was struggling to make a colour palette or scheme with the limited amount of ink I have.

Well here it is and I think it really helps to see all the colours together on card next to each other so I can instantly see what colour look good together.

unfortunately the white ink pad got contaminated by the purple before it (that stuff is hard to rub off!) but its just white so I'm not particularly bothered.

I used the new geometric style II stamps from Clearly Besotted Stamps to stamp the colours, choosing a different stamp to differentiate between distress ink pads (the circles). Any excuse to use these new stamps! The distress markers were just scribbled on (seeing as they can be used for stamping)

Oh and here is a quick photo of our little monster last weekend discovering muddy puddles for the first time. The best thing to do on a cold wet day!

My biggest craft need at the moment is more ink pads. I think dew drops are the way to go for me!

Cards of 2013 part 2

I did actually make a lot of cards last year ( for my standards) and learnt a lot over the year. 

Apologies for the poor quality photos. Most were taken on my phone quickly before sealing them in the envelope!

This was for the birth of a friends baby but I wanted to do something different. I wanted to make this card up as a framed photo for the babies room but thought if I put it on the card, they can see it first and decide if they like it or want alterations. Needless to say they liked it :-)

A pretty girly card for a pretty girly girl. I was unsure what to do at the time but thought I would keep the colours minimalistic and go for white on white with a pop of colour from the butterflies and sentiment. The embossed card came from a set.

An end of term thank you card to my sister in law who is also our child minder. They had recently been to France so that was the inspiration for this card. The sentiments have glitter embossed on them but it doesn't show up in the photo.

Birthday card for a good friend who loves purple so I used some free papers that came with a magazine. I stamped the floral design with silver ink which shimers in the light but the photo does it no justice. The purple feathers were stamps I made from erasers :-)

A card for my friends on their wedding. Their theme was vintage and traditional so I tried to capture that in this card. The stamped sentiment is from a free set from a magazine. the flowers were die cut using Sizzix dies out of cardstock I had stamped and distressed. the stamps were from 7gypsies. the punched leaves were distressed on the ends with old paper distress ink. The embossed and distressed strip is a Sizzix folder. I added a vintage button to the flower for a final touch. I found it in my grans button tin she gave me. I love these buttons as I remember looking at them from a young age but its lovely to see them come out of the box and be appreciated.

A card to my partner on our tenth anniversary together. Had a lot of fun with embossing on this one. I thought the clocks added a nice touch. I had used stencils for the first time on this card so went a bit mental. one clock is from the Prima Paris theme set while the others are from a free set with a Docrafts magazine.the cherish stamp is from the Prima Rondelle collection set. The sweet memories stamp is from the Dovercraft urban stamps sentiment set. the floral stamp is from Tim Holtz floral scroll.

Birthday card for granny olive. I partially embossed the card, die cut letters and die cut a heart out of the front of the card. The grey floral stamp is from Tim Holtz, the dots from my minds eye and the flower dies from Sizzix and Britannia dies. The embossing folder is from Sizzix.

A simple batch birthday card I made when using sequins for the first time. The paper is a free digi from Melz Stamps, the birthday stamp is from Dovercraft, partially stamped, die cut letter from Tim Holtz 'letter block' and the sequins are off Amazon :-)

As you can see I've tried out so many different techniques last year and cant wait for what this year brings :-)

Cards of 2013

Since I hardly posted anything last year I though I would make a reminiscent post. So here is the first post of what I've been up to in 2013 (in no particular order!)

This card was for my cousin Ben who turned 17 so I tried to make it 'cool'. I die cut 3 circles out of card stock and embossed it with a chevron pattern. I used a range of distress inks to make a rainbow effect then stamped starts from 7gypsies stamp stamp set. The sentiment from wow embossing stamps set 'everyday sentiments', die cut on a tag from sizzix and distress the edges to match the card background. I did later die cut the letters B E N and put them into the circles but didn't take a photo of that :-)

A few cards made for friends and family. I used the free papers that come with a magazine for the flowers and butterflies. the grey papers are actually the inside of business envelopes. I saw on another blog about using the envelopes because of the different patterns available. I do like recycling!

 A Christmas card I made for a friend to give to his wife. he wanted to get her a very personalised card to make the biggest impression and I hope I fulfilled that for him. I embossed the die cut letter and snowflake in sliver and one snowflake in glitter. The red background was stamped from a Dovercraft stamp and distressed. lastly a tag was die cut out of craft card, distressed and stamped.

 My end of term card for my sister in law, who also happens to be our child minder. Not much to say, just reverse embossed the red card stock, distressed, die cut snowflakes and a sentiment. Simples!

 A birthday card for my boss at work. This was also my first play with the clearly besotted stamps leaves and die cut set. I love them!!! The die cutters are very good and cut like butter. My die cuts just fell out!
The butterfly is from sizzix which was coloured using distress inks and embossed with glitter. the sentiment and fancy swirl is from the wow everyday sentiments set. below is a close up of the butterfly.

Christmas cards

So its been a busy year, going back to work, moving jobs, Leo turning one in the summer. Ive wanted to post but I find the longer I leave it, the harder it is, so this year im determined to gain more confidence and post regularly.

Anyway, ive been picking up with lots of christmas cards for close family and friends.

 Ive seen a few cards with stamped wreaths so this is my take on it. Ive used the clearly bessotted stamp leaf design and then embossed a bow from another stamp set (sorry cant remember which)

This snowflake design was a simple quick one I mass produced. The snowflake was die cut and used in another project, then the sillouette was torn and put on top of some festive paper from me 2 you decoupage set (i think!)

The reindeer template was a free gift in a magazine which I embossed onto melz stampz digi paper, inked up using distress inks, used sticklers to define the reindeer, die cut the red letters and finished off with a bow, brad and sequins.

Wow, thats a mouthful!

This one was my favourite and a few were done for the closest family. I stamped the red background from urban stamps, dovercraft, which I thought work well enough on its own without having to add a sentiment. I heat embossed in gold the same stamp on red card but then used this to die cutthe poinsettia leaves to give some texture. A couple of plain green leaves were also die cut to complete the piontsettia.

I aslo added a bit of greenery from the holiday greenery die by sizzix. All the green die cuts we inked on the edges with pine needles distress ink and the red with fired brick just to add some dimension.

Ill hopefully post a few from last year to catch up on what has been missed soon  :-)

Hope everyone had a wonderful christmas and new year 

Rachael x