Birdy Cards using free papers

Lovely free papers fromMaking Cards magazine printed on proper paper not that cheap glossy stuff!! I found them while looking through some magazines earlier so thought I would make them up. I used them on a variety of different designs, waterfall, buckle card, gatefold and flap fold front cards. Onlythings I added were a few stamped images, brads card and glue.

Above-Sideways waterslide card makes a change from the upright ones
Below- half side flap card
Gatefold card, I coloured the free vellum with kaleidascope inks on the back and mounted it over the images so they show through faintly I like this effect 3 Fold card Regular waterfall with a little watercolourBuckle card wide panel one side thin panel the other and a length of card glued under the paper on the thin panel coming round over the panel and under the card strip to make a "buckle"

3D Name Card with video

My son is 22 next week, where have those years gone to :-( I made this for him its a stand up card, I find male cards very hard as I hate anything with a "male stereotype theme" drink, sport etc are definate no-no's for me. I am not so keen on cards with Son, Mum,Dad etc either but to personalise with a name I don't mind so much. Yes I am an odd fussy person.

Below is my first attempt at an instructional video!! decided I need 3 hands :-)

Cut from Core'dinations brown cardstock, matt paper is Basic Grey Hang 10, name has been cut in Alphalicious font with plain blue for outline, silver pen for stick effect round the name. Matching tag is same but I have put a little gloss on the letters


I am not great with measuring and do a lot of stuff "by eye", an easy way to do these is to take a piece of cardstock the size you want, make your first concertina fold, bring second side over to meet it, turn whole piece over and fold smaller fold up and there its done and not a ruler in sight

I have attempted to show this but its not easy to fold and hold a camera at the same time :-) lol

Easy boxes

Ok, so I love boxes, tins and other things you can store or present in. Its nice to have a quick easy way to make one for that last minute present so here I will attempt to explain the easiest one I know.

To work out the size of paper you need work out the size of the square your gift will fit into for example this one is for a bracelet I made which when laid on desk needed to be 2" square, then work out the depth, this was not a lot for the bracelet so decided on 1 inch high. So 2" +1"+1" =4" , easy so far. I have marked the lines on this paper to show but you don't need to do this when making them yourself. Now score 1" on all 4 sides once done your middle square should be 2". For the Top of the box cut a square of paper approx 1/4" larger so 4 !/4" piece this allows for the top to fit over the bottom. (sorry if this is a bit obvious)Now score from the corner to the fold line on all four corners as shown
Push this fold inwards and bring sides up to meet each other to form a neat crease, do this for all four sides. Now glue inside the triangle fold to hold them together and then glue that down to the side so they won't be in the way when you put the lid on.
You can press the folds with a bonefolder for nice crisp edges
Like this, hold in place with clips till they have dried. I suggest a liquid glue (UHU) as DS Tape often pops open. This photo doesn't look very good I added more glue and placed clips to the edge so they stuck flatter sorry about that :-(
and there you have your box (see those edges flat and tidy now :-) takes about 10 mins to make from any paper you have, double sided gives a nice look or you can wrap your gift with tissue. Hope you have a go at these any questions please email me :-)

Goodbye

I make no apologies for putting this here a great and talented man has died, Rest in peace Michael I feel like I have lost a childhood friend xxx

Driving Test Card

I have made this as requested for Gerrys Niece as she just passed her driving test (well done) .

On the desk it looks fine but in the photo the car looks a bit odd (thinking here it looks like a fish!! lol) and the light is bad as the colours work well together :-( What do you think?

Papers K & Co, Core'dinations and vellum (insert), Cricut Paper Dolls Cart, Prima flowers and brads

Twitter and Rainbows

Ok so I said blow the shopping, who needs food anyway? and crafted instead :-)

These are another set of Illusive Image Stamps "All of a Twitter" which I have not got round to trying yet :-( I buy stuff then get sidetracked and it sits for a while, so, I am trying to use everything I own, bit by bit, to justify all the dosh I keep spending. I think I may have to go on a "stash diet" after all I seem to have more stuff than the local craft shop but its sooooooo hard lol

I got out my Kaliedacolour inks as I really love those, in case you hadn't guessed!! and here is the result.

Supplies - Illusive Images Stamps
Kaleidacolour Inks
Core'dinations cardstock
gems and flowers
Papermania and Crafty Individuals papers
Glues etc

If you want to try the fold technique for the first card photographed you can find it here at Dawns Crafty Blog, she is great :-)

No Crafting :-(

Its a bit mad here right now. I am playing host to a "Rave" this weekend!!! Don't ask!!!

Its daughters idea to raise her profile in the record industry as she has a small studio and is a DJ. I am being invaded by a large group of ravers for a Camping, Music, BBQ and Pool party which I was assured wouldn't mean me doing a thing apart from lending them the land. I get the feeling I may have been fibbed to :-( .....will let you know after the weekend if I was right. I have already been earmarked as chief babysitter (nothing new there then) and had a request to get the tractor out and just give the paddock a quick once over!! Yeah right it takes a couple of days to do that and thats if the tractor is working, but its not as someone (me) broke it :-) lol oh dear silly me. I suspect that I may have a large amount of clearing up to do after as well and quite a few trips to the recycling centre.

I have loads of new "toys" but no time to play unless I do without a few hours sleep which I may have to do as these new stamps are just so cute :-)
xx

Wire Jewellery

I have been making some more pieces today with my knitted wire tube. The only problem I have is my wrist is now agony because of my arthritis :-( This is why I can only do short sessions of fiddly work but silly me has been beading for hours and now I am regretting it. Sorry little moan there!!

I love these Tibetan spacer beads they are so nice and have slightly larger holes, that is the only downside of this wire(the wider ones) is that you needed larger holed beads for it to go through. Pandura Beads would be great but at 1.99 a piece they are too expensive but they do have large holes which would be great for the wider wire and for a special piece are ideal.

The first is just on memory bracelet wire, the second is 3cm wide wire- a choker with clamps on the ends they work very well with this. The third is 2cm wire, I used a bell end lobster claw chain on this to hide the ends (use jewellery cement or superglue to fix it inside the bell as with end caps) The last is 1cm wire with the beads inside the wire, fiddly to do but quite effective.

You can get this wire at Stitch and Craft this link is for the thinner ribbon type and also different widths from Wires they have rolls of it and it is a lot cheaper but they don't have the thin ribbon one yet. They do have a 1cm version but I am not sure how it compares to the ribbon from Stitch and Craft. If you want to see more about this look at the Italian company site Menoni who make it and here for a tutorial about using it.

Birds galore and a cute Elephant

Oh joy my new Graphicus Stamps arrived today I adore this set, there is another set along the same lines these are Sing your song and Fly away with me also available is "Live out loud" and "Curly birds" but they are for another day when I can get some funds together :-)
Things I used to make these are - papers are by K and Co, co're-dinations cardstock, H20's, versamark ink, clear, black and white embossing powders, gems, ribbons and yes a few peel-offs (don't use them often but I wanted to do these without inked edges for a change.
Got these new stamps from Kraft Crazy they are so cute I couldn't resist. They are a real bargain at 1.99 each by Prima Stamps they are quite a good size too. The backgrounds were done with the set from Personal Impressions "Abstract" around 5.00 a set of A6 size sheet. I can't remember who makes these papers, sorry. I stamped and embossed them then painted with H20's.This is what was left over after making all the cards so I put it all together to make the last card and a few ATC's, well waste not want not!! :-)