Time Out Challenge 4

Evening all,

I hope you are all well. I am here with my latest card creation which is for the latest Time Out Challenge. I absolutely adored the inspiration given which is an amazing card by Virginia Lu as seen below….

How can you not be inspired by this amazing card? I really loved the layout of it and so I decided to replicate this in my version. I am really loving a black and white colour scheme with a flash of colour and so decided to go with that for this card. Here is my version…

I apologise that my photos are not so great lately. I am just busy with lots of things just now and so it has to be quick compact camera snapshots instead of my proper SLR photos!!!

For this card, I began with a white base card and layered it with black, then white again. I added a strip of black and white patterned paper - this in infact some gift wrap that I fell in love with!! I also added (and this was a first to try this) a strip of card with a strip of double sided tape added and sprinkled with white glitter. I am LOVING the result!! I die cut then stamped both sizes of Uniko Studio Pure Floral Chrysanthemums (yes, it's my favourite stamp). I embossed them with clear EP and then coloured both with spectrum noir markers in a bright fuchsia. I added these on to my pattern panel after adding some swirls of pink & white twine. I then stamped the Best Wishes sentiment by Waltzing Mouse on a rectangular piece of card and splashed it with some water-colour paint. I added some pearls to bring this panel alive a little. The card was finished off with some sequins as per Virginia's card.

I am actually really pleased with this card. It is quite different to what I would usually do, but I like it. I adore the layout and that is one I would most definitely use again.

Thank's for taking a look and any comments are always very much appreciated.

Laura xxx

Resources

Card - White & Black card stock from Paremill Direct. Gift wrap from Marks and Spencer.

Stamps - Pure Florals: Chrysanthemums by Uniko Studio, Sentiment by Waltzing Mouse - Big Day additions set.

Embellishments - twine by papermania capsule collection. Pearls by Anitas, Sequins by Hobbycraft.

Ink - fuchsia by Hobbycraft, EP by papermania, Spectrum noir markers, glitter from stash.

Marie Curie Cancer Donation

Helllo hello,

I am here to report some very exciting news with regards to the card I created for my Guest Design spot  at Uniko Studio.

Since this was created during Cancer awareness month, I decided to auction the card via Facebook in order to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer care. I was absolutely amazed with the generosity of people and the card in fact raised a staggering £75!!!!! 

Thank you to all those who got involved.

Laura xx

Watercolour online class

Hello all,

I am so sorry I have been MIA…..I ave been mega busy doing my friend's wedding invitations. Photos will hopefully follow tomorrow!!

I am so excited to tell you all that I have signed up to undertake a online class called 'Watercolour for Card Makers.' As some of you know, my grandad passed away a few weeks ago. He was an avid watercolorist and I am honoured to inherit his art supplies. I have no clue whatsoever about water colouring and so when I saw this class come up - it was almost light a sign from above!! I just knew I had to sign up for it.

Pre class, we have had some videos to watch and some homework tasks. This has been so helpful already in helping me to make sense of the resources I am now the proud owner of. I have a few photos to show you what I discovered….

I adored this set of paints by Reeves

I was delighted to find some of the make of paints as shown in our pre class videos. These were in fact the only set that had been opened for use, so my Grandad clearly liked them too!!!

This fabulous little book shows you how to achieve different colours by telling you the colours to mix together.

I found this too, which I can only assume is also for helping you mix colours. I've not quite worked out how to use it yet though!!

There were a set of paints that I think are genuinely from Singapore - my Grandad was a great traveller and so he probably picked them up whilst on holiday there. They haven't been used….yet!!

There were also two types of watercolour papers

Now, on to the homework tasks.

I cut strips of watercolour paper and painted a square of each of the colours using the different paints.

The bottom strip was done using the Chiltern Wove paper which I found very thin and rough, whereas the Rockingford paper was much thicker and had a nicer texture.

I have taken a close up picture in order to show the textures of the two papers in detail….

 This is the Chilten Wove (Looks like waffle)

 This is the Rockingford (more of a hammered texture)

The second task was to try mixing up some colours to see the resulting colour. I found this really very interesting. I found that I was particularly drawn to mixing blue and green shades together. I think because this is my favourite shades of colours just now for card making!

Finally, I made the lattice as we were recommended to do.

My lines are a little wonky, but I think that is okay!!

I have made a few cards in the past month that make use of watercolours, but it has simple been a plain coloured panel, straight from a paint tube with no mixing etc. I am so very much looking forward to finding out how to use watercolours in lots of different ways in my card making.

Here are my previous examples ….

The turquoise panel…

 The back tag.

Roll on 5th May, when class starts!!

Laura xxx

Time Out Challenge 3

'Oh you could make me a card for my Dad's 65th Birthday'……phrases like that strike fear in to me - and that it exactly what one of my friends said to me last week. I love card making - but when it comes to creating something specifically for someone - I do tend to panic a bit.

I tried to get ideas of themes to use and so was given, football or gardening!! The football team in question has a maroon colour scheme and so I decided to go with that. I thought I could bring in the gardening/natural aspect by using some kraft card - perhaps a tedious link!!

Anyway, here is what I created. Luckily, my friend is over the moon with it!!

Again, apologies for the poor photo quality.

The Birthday sentiment comes from Uniko Studio's 'A gift for you' set. The 'Happy' is from Clearly Besotted Fresh Flower set and the Dad is by personal impressions - a real mix!!!!

There is some DP by docrafts capsule collections - they are so versatile. I thought this one replicated footballs a bit!!!

Since the theme at Time Out this time is a birthday card (masculine if possible), I thought I would enter this card.

Any comments always very much appreciated.

Laura xx

Dynamic Duos 99

The card I have for the new dynamic duos challenge is a card idea I have had floating around in my head for the past few weeks. I knew what I wanted on the card, but I wasn't sure how to arrange the elements, so this took a bit of fiddling around.

I was delighted when I saw that the dynamic duos challenge matched the colours I was wanting to use for the card…..

The gold did not feature in my idea, but this was optional anyway - so I have opted not to use it!

Here is my card….

Apologies that my photos are not great this week - I have been a bit short on time and so I had to just take quick snaps.

For the card, I started with a cream card stock base and layered on strips of black card stock. I stamped, then clear embossed the gorgeous flowers from Uniko Studio's Flower Power 2 set. These were then coloured with spectrum noir markers and fussy cut out. A bit of bling just had to be added by way of a stick on crystal.

I spent ages trying to decide how to arrange the flowers. Nothing seemed to work. I then decided to use thin scraps of card I had in front of me, to create a tree branches. This was right!!!

The sentiments are also from Uniko Studio - the Birthday from the 'A Gift for You' set and wishes comes from Pure Florals:Chrysanthemums.

Hope you like it. As always, any comments so very much appreciated.

Laura xx

Happy Easter!

Hello everyone,

I am so sorry for being MIA for a while now - I have to admit I have been cheating on crafting with another new hobby - running!! Some Mum's and I from school have decided to do a 'couch to 5k' challenge whereby we learn to run a 5k in just 8 short weeks. We are running 3 times a week for half hour sessions broken into running and walking - we are about to move to more running and less walking…eek!! My very first run with the girls was at 7.30am on Friday morning. I was dreading the prospect of the early rise and straight into full on exercise, but it was actually amazing. We have been having some fabulous weather in Edinburgh just now and so it was a semi warm, really sunny morning with only a few other runners to be seen. Was great!!

I wanted to thank my two running buddies for letting me join them so I got them both a water bottle like mine that they had both been admiring, and of course I just had to make a wee gift tag to go along with it…..

I was really pleased with the results.

These were made using the GORGEOUS stamps in the Fresh Flowers set by Clearly Besotted. The Thank you sentiment comes from the same set and the bottom sentiment is from Uniko Studio Bright Butterflies. 

The flowers were coloured with spectrum noir markers and the flower on the left had some liquid pearls added (my new product of the moment) and the one on the right has some lilac glitter glue added to the centre of the flowers.

Both friends were delighted. We've already been out a run this evening….I am just dreading the painful legs tomorrow!!

Got a few more posts to write tonight then its off for an early night before its back to the old routine tomorrow - husband off to work at the crack of dawn and my oldest son back at school. It's then just me and our toddler at home….maybe time for some painting tomorrow.

Oh, talking about painting…I have just signed up to do my very first 'Online Class'……Watercolour for cardmakers. As some of you, I inherited a vast array of water-colour paints and papers (I got even more given to me yesterday) and so when this class came up, I just had to sign up. It starts on the 5th May and I'm uber excited!!

Hope you all had a lovely Easter.

Laura xxx

Clearly Besotted Challenge 10 - 'Spring'

As promised, I am here to share my creation for the Clearly Besotted Challenge. This month the theme is 'Spring' which of course tied in perfectly when I was making Easter cards for my family anyway. I recently purchased Clearly Besotted's Spring Bloom stamp set and dies and I just love them!!!

I wanted to keep my card oh so CAS and so decided to make use of a single Daffodil (the flower I hold as the first sign of spring), and a vase. I die cut the jar, ran it through a Sizzix 'more dots' embossing folder but so that the front of the jar would be debossed. This allowed me to then use my spectrum noir markers to colour in the dots. I then finished off my jar/vase with a coat of glossy accents (a new purchase) to give it the illusion I guess of a ceramic vase.

I gave the card a little dimension by propping the vase and daffodil head up on foam pads.

The card was given a yellow layer of card to add a bit of 'Easter' colour and was finished off with an Easter sentiment stamped in light and dark green.

Materials used

Card - White (Papermill Direct), yellow from stash

Stamps &Dies - Spring blooms (Clearly Besotted), Fresh flowers (Clearly Besotted)

Ink - Jade Green &Orange (Hobbycraft), Spectrum Noir Markers, Glossy Accents.

I hope you like it. Any comments always very much appreciated. 

Laura xxx

STILL Busy busy…….

Evening all,

Despite having a great week with both my husband and the kids off on holiday, there just doesn't seem to be very much crafting time available…It's trips to the park, museum, cinema etc instead.

I did manage to escape at the weekend for a few hours though and went to my very first Ross Papercraft show. It was not really what I was expecting, although I'm not sure what I was actually expecting to be honest…for a start, my friend and I were the youngest there by far and there were many an old lady turning up with a shopping trolley!! I found that although there were lots of exhibitors there, they almost had too much stock - and each exhibitor had much about the same. The one exhibitor I was so excited to see was Stampin' up - but they weren't there!!!! There was a company selling Visible Image stamps who do one of my favourite stamps - the butterfly you see me using in lots of my cards and so I thought I would buy the dragonfly too - but they had no stock of this!!! Typical!!

I was also hoping to see stencils & embossing paste which is a big thing just now, but there was none. The one thing I found was a big trend with all exhibitors was building flakes. I was SO tempted to buy this - but I would need the flakes, the glue, the sponge……too much just now.

I did however pick up some bits and pieces. I got lots of interesting cards - glitter, pearlised, Kraft etc. I bought Glossy accents which I am so excited by and have used on the one card I will share with you for the Clearly Besotted Challenge.

Today after being at the park, my husband had to nip to his work to do a quick 5 minute task and since it is quite near to Hobbycraft, I got to get a quick 20 minutes in there too. I have bought some liquid pearls, perfect pearls and a red embossing powder. I was looking also for a charcoal coloured ink, but sadly, they didn't have any. Can't wait to have a shot of these new products, but unlikely to get to until the end of the week.

I have also now agreed to begin a 'couch' to 5k challenge with two friends so quite when I will actually have time for crafting - who knows!!! I'm sure I will squeeze it in though!!

This afternoon I managed to get out and take proper photos of the Easter cards I have made this year as the ones I took the other night were pretty poor!! Apologies for boring you with the same pictures again!!

Oh, and for those have been following my big boy bed progress….I am now down to only returning my little one to bed 10 times!!!!!!! Huge progress from the 90 times the first night!!!!!!! :-) In my next post I will share the card I have made for the 'Spring' theme at Clearly Besotted.

Laura xxx

Busy busy……Easter cards to share

Hello all,

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past week or so. I have been mega busy with my two boys due to it being the Easter holidays but I've also had a family bereavement to contend with, which required the production of 50 orders of service. I have also been busy working on Wedding Invitations for my best friend's wedding……all this has left very little 'me' crafting time!!!! I have however been bust creating Easter cards for all our family which I am here to share with you now. These are all made using Uniko Studio or Clearly Besotted Stamps. They have been photographed very quickly tonight and so the lighting is not the best. I have reserved one card that I will photograph and share properly tomorrow, as I am going to enter it in to the latest Clearly Besotted competition. For now though, here are the others.

Any comments as always are very much appreciated - I would love to hear which is your favourite!!

Laura xxx

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