Jo's Birthday Card

About a week ago it was my lovely buddy Jo's birthday.  As she is also a crafting buddy and one quarter of our Craft Stamping Quartet this card needed to be special.

Sometime ago Jo had admired a couple of cards I made using masking and blended Distress Inks together with overstamping so I decided to use this technique for her card.  I chose to use the Heidi Swapp hibiscus masks because I know they are one of Jo's favourite flowers.  Over the masked circle area I lightly overstamped with a beautiful script stamp from Elusive Images Antiquities plate.  I'd had this for ages and never realised how lovely and fine it is.

                                                     

The moths/butterflies were stamped onto acetate and heat embossed, cut out and attached just by their bodies which I decorated with sticky backed pearls.  These came from the EI Butterfly Poppy Collage plate and I love them stamped on acetate because they are so delicate.  The sentiment is from another EI plate called Birthday Words.  The only thing I used which wasn't from Graphicus was the hanging vine stamp which is a Lavinia stamp.
                                                                           

I've shown you two shots of the full card because I did this card the night before I had to post it (talk about by the skin of my teeth) so I took the pics in a hurry the early next morning before dashing to the post office.  Now I can't make up my mind which is the better shot so I've included both, Lol!

Thank you for visiting and commenting if you have time.  Have a good week everyone.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

Mother's Day Card (I think)

Hi everyone,

How quickly it's come round to another weekend. This week has flown for me because my daughter Jenna and her daughter, our beautiful Isabella came to stay for a few days. We also had our lovely Alexa pop in to play with her cousin. As there is only 3 months age difference it's lovely to see them together but typically they both want to play with the same toy and they both want 'Mamma cuggles' at the same time, Lol! By the time Jenna and Izzy went home Wednesday evening I was pretty tired but it is far too quiet around here now. It's either all or nothing, Ha! Ha!


Anyway, this is a card I made before our visitors came and I think it will be for my Mum for Mother's Day unless I come up with something I like better.

It's an A4 card base and I've used my Heidi Swapp Mega Circle Masks and Butterfly masks and then blended Distress Inks in Peeled Paint, Tattered Rose (a little editing here because it was Worn Lipstick, Lol) and (I think) Antique Linen. Before I removed the circle mask I stamped a leafy branch by Impression Obsession and using Peeled Paint DI.


After removing the circle mask I repositioned the butterfly one and blended more ink down into the right bottom corner and then stamped and embossed a couple of butterflies from Elusive Images Butterfly Daisy Collage Themeplate, coloured them with DIs, cut them out and attached them to the card leaving the wings free. I used a layered silk Prima flower and some punched fern fronds for the top left corner and decided to add a bit of Stickles to it and to the tips of the butterflies wings.

Finally I blended some of the DIs onto a piece of card, stamped the Irish blessing (another EI stamp) and cut it out using one of my Nestie labels sets together with a co-ordinating matt.


The only items not bought from Graphicus are the card and the Impression Obsession stamp which I've had for ages and can't remember where I got it from. BTW have you checked out Graphicus' bright shiny new website which is only a week old?

I'm meeting my friend, Jo in Nottingham tomorrow for a bit of retail therapy (the crafty type, of course) and lunch. I hope the sun shines for us like it has here today and I hope it shines on all you lovely visitors too. Whatever the weather though, have a really good weekend.

Hugs
Lesley Xx

Birthday Card for my Crafting Buddy.

I'm well and truly hooked on the Heidi Swapp Mega Masks at the moment and I used one of the smaller circles on the sheet to create a card for my lovely friend Jo.

We met on the internet just over a year ago through our mutual love of Elusive Images stamps and our admiration of the company's owner/designer Glenda Waterworth, whose blog Artylicious, we both visited and commented on frequently. After emailing each other several times and talking over all things crafty we met irl at a Graphicus workshop and really got on well together. Since then we email each other on a very regular basis, supporting and encouraging each other in our 'crafty' endeavours. It's great to be able to discuss anything to do with craft and know that you're not boring the other person to death (as happens sometimes with my OH).

As well as emailing we do try to have craft related outings every so often and again, it's really good to be able to share the excitement of going to a workshop or a craft show with a good friend and I look forward to many more of these outings with Jo.

I know she's going to be feeling embarrased but I just have to say how much her emails lift my mood if I'm feeling a bit down in the dumps. She always manages to put something in that makes me smile and I know that she has at least one other crafty friend who thinks the same. So thank you Jo and a very Happy Birthday to you for last Sunday.

Now on to the details of the card and I'll try to be brief. I used DIs to blend a fairly light background to the circle and did position a small bird and branch mask (again Heidi Swapp) but I ended up almost obliterating it with stamping

.

All the various stamps I used are from Elusive Images (available from Graphicus) and I stamped the little bird on the branch twice so that I could make it nice and bright and then cut it out and layered it onto the card. I then used Glossy Accents to give it shine. I stamped and embossed the bird with the curly tail and then coloured it with H20s, cut it out and positioned a feather behind the tail before adding it to the card on foam pads.

I blended chalk ink on the pretty block circle stamp and cut it out with my Nestabilities and then stamped the sentiment and inked the edges. Finally, I arranged the little flowers and added a bit of bling.

I think just about everything I used on this card I bought from Graphicus except for the basic card stock and the feather and self adhesive diamante stones which were in my stash.

List of EI stamps used : Damask Blocks

Design-a-Tree

Live out Loud

Curly Birds

Sentiment is from a Graphicus Guild exclusive stamp plate.

My Mum's Birthday Card and a Doggy Trauma

My Mum is 81 years old next Sunday and I have to say I hope if I get to her age I'll be in the same sprightly condition. Somehow, I doubt it because she puts me to shame now sometimes, Lol.

Anyway, this is the card I've made for her and it's safe to post as she doesn't even have access to a computer let alone own one. She does delight in sending me text messages though, in text speak I might add, from her mobile phone.

Originally, this started out as an A4 card and I used my new Mega Circle masks by Heidi Swapp. I had just finished all the blending, flower masking and stamping and then ....................... I dropped a blooming DI inkpad onto it. The air was somewhat blue, I have to admit. The only lucky part was that I didn't drop the inkpad onto the actual masked circle so I decided to cut it out and mount it onto another card rather than waste all that work. As you can probably see from the detail close ups, I blended DIs onto the background first then used a HS daisy mask and blended some more, removed the mask and did a couple of layers of stamping using stamps from the EI DL sized Lily themeplate and the Fantasy Floral A4 themeplate. Then after cutting the circle out I distressed the edge a little and then inked lightly all the way round. I then used a complete contrast DI in Broken China to stamp the humming bird by Inkadinkado which I versamarked all over, clear embossed and cut out. Using the same contrast ink I stamped quite a few flowers in two sizes again from the Fantasy Floral themeplate, cut them out, curled the petals a little, layered arranged them onto my card before fixing with silicone glue. The pretty circle block is from EI again and is one of their newest plates called Damask Blocks along with the sentiment from their very useful new Birthday Words plate. I cut this out using my scalloped circle Nestabilities. I also punched some leaf fronds from Core-dinations card using my Evergreen punch by Floral Punch Craft from The Hobbyhouse.

Almost everything I used for this card can be purchased from Graphicus/Elusive Images, my favourite craft shop as everyone knows.

Before I finish this post I'd just like to share a little bit about the rather traumatic week we've had with our little Snoopy. On Monday evening Snoopy thought he could have a little chomp on a nice fat bumble bee and live to tell the tale. Within seconds his face started to swell and before long he looked more like a Bassett Hound than the Jack Russell/Dachsund cross that he is. The swelling was so bad we got rather worried that it might affect his airways so felt that a call to the vet was in order. Result - a quick OUT OF HOURS visit for a steroid injection to halt the swelling at a cost of £62! Well, at least it seemed to do the trick and although it took a while for the swelling to come down, by Tuesday evening we thought he was fine. Uh Oh! Thought wrong! In the wee small hours of Wednesday (3 am to be precise) we were woken by Snoopy's panicked barking because he wanted to be let out. We thought that he'd settle after that but we were wrong again. 45 minutes later he started again and when I went to him this time he had been sick (too much info I know). I spent the rest of the night on the settee having 10 minute naps then being roused by a very poorly little dog being ill.

I have never known our little bundle of energy be so still and so quiet for over 24 hours. It's taken him most of today to get back to anything like his normal self and, of course, as he has spent the greater part of the last 36 hours sleeping he has just started to wake up - and it's nearly my bedtime and I haven't caught up on the sleep I lost yet. Whether it was the poison from the bee sting (after all, he is only small) or something else entirely that made him so sick I don't know but I hope it doesn't happen again.

The first of the photos is to show what he normally looks like and the others are taken about an hour or so after the sting.

Hopefully after another night's sleep he and I will both be fully recovered in time to enjoy the weekend - I hope!

Night Night! Sleep tight!

Masked Wedding Cards

On the 4th July, Jo and I went up the A1 to Barnard Castle, the home of my favourite crafty people at Graphicus and Elusive Images. It was the 2nd of their two Open Days and the very first time I have managed to get to one of them. The atmosphere is lovely there because they are all very friendly and the demonstrations are second to none. Annette was demonstrating the die cutting machines like the Cricut but unfortunately I didn't get time to watch her (maybe next time). I did get to watch Judith making some lovely beads in the Melt Pot which was really interesting and made me want to get mine out for a play at something different.

The best for me personally though were Glenda, Lynn and Lesley, who were all stamping in one way or another and my absolute favourite of the day was Lynn demoing some fabulous Mega Masks from Heidi Swapp. If you visit Lynn's blog she has posted the samples she made during her demos and they are wonderful.

Anyway, I just had to buy these and couldn't wait to have a play with them when I got home. Over the first couple of weeks in August we have two family weddings. My niece gets married on the 1st August and my nephew gets married on the same day but away from home so they are having their celebratory reception on the 15th. I decided that I could use the Mega Heart Masks to make a couple of Wedding Cards.

Both the cards use the same format on A4 cards and the same materials, stamps and masks. I just changed the colours and altered the positioning slightly. Except for the two word definition stamps - Married and Marriage, which were from Stamp to Your Arts Content, everything else was from Graphicus. I used Milled Lavender and Weathered Wood DIs on the first card and Tattered Rose and Antique Linen on the second one. The flower masks I used are also Heidi Swapp and I bought them from Graphicus ages ago but have never got round to using them until now.

This was the first one I did in Milled Lavender and Weathered Wood.

and this was the second one in Tattered Rose and Antique Linen.

I thoroughly enjoyed making both these cards and I love blending backgrounds with DIs. I also bought the Mega Circles Masks as well as the Hearts and I have a couple of birthdays for some of my VIPs coming up over the next few weeks so I'm going to try using the circles with some stamping. Again you can see an example on Lynn's blog.