Two Cards and some Fun News

Well that has to go down as the most unimaginative post title in history!!! I'll blame it on being giddy with excitement because I've joined the Paper Smooches Sparks DT for the next 6months... have you seen the talented team I'm accompanying???  It's going to be fun and I can't wait to get started :0)

It just so happens that I have a card for this weeks PS Sparks challenge which is a colour theme and they have a definite nautical feel....

                                                             
At this moment in time I do not have any nautical stamps by Paper Smooches so I made the striped pattern down the edge of the card with these PS stamps

 

I'm really loving the technique of using the back of acrylic stamps to make extra shapes from your sets :0) I also love the fact that a nautical theme means a good dose of eyelets can be used too... I have enough to get through!!
After stamping and embossing the sentiment I felt that gap needed a little something and the tiny flag from the top of the Sailboat die was just the job :0)

My second card is for Dynamic Duos which has a bold colour duo this week with the dessert option of making a card for a child...
                                  
.....I don't usually say no to desserts so I had to join in and use these cute little vehicle dies from Memory Box for an ultra CAS card and seeing as it's a birthday card it's another for the birthday challenge at Addicted to CAS

 James has a large collection of diecast cars under his bed and you will frequently find them lined up in colour families on his track or along the table so this formation just wouldn't do for him!! I made them lovely and shiny with glossy accents and dont'cha just love this itty bitty wheels too!!

 Right much to do today as Hannah is coming home tomorrow night having finished her exams for this year and my crafting space seems to have spilled into her room!!! 

Thanks for staying with me to the end of another long post and thanks to the lovely comments you've already left me about the Paper Smooches DT announcement, you really are the best :0)

Jenny x

Christmas Greenery

In the history of Less is More this has to be the second time I have put a card in the gallery so early on a Saturday morning!! It just so happens that the card I made for my blog post at Make the Day Special fits the RED & GREEN colour theme this week..... yay :0)

I've put this photo first because it shows the glittery berries amongst the greenery.... glitter is a bit camera shy as you can see from the whole card shot....

I've used two Paper Smooches sets for this card... the leaves and berries are from 'Reflections' and the sentiment is from 'All Yule Need'. To make the berries shimmer I used versamark and then Stamp n Bond embossing powder to make the glitter dust stick!!
I will also tell you that the air turned blue for a minute or two whilst I tried to tie that bow on my Bow Easy.... I thought seam binding was supposed to be a dream make bows from!! ...I've decided that finger nails are an advantage, still, got there in the end :0)

I see that Dynamic Duos has this festive colour palette this week too so I'll pop my card in the gallery there too :0)

While I'm here I wanted to let you know that Avery Elle stamps are the latest American brand stamps available from Make the Day Special here in the UK, you can find them here. There are also re-stocks of Lawn Fawn on their way and the December release Paper Smooches will be in next week too.
You can like us on Facebook for future store updates and why not follow the blog too.

Thanks for looking :0)
Jenny x

A One Layer Neighbourhood

Helloooo..... it's been a while since I played along with the challenges at Less is More and this week is a one layer card so a great way to start flexing those crafting brain cells :0)

The theme is HOUSES, the perfect opportunity to use these little Stampin Up houses that I won as a spot prize from Chrissie and Mandi a while back and I used the colour combo from Dynamic Duos this week too.

The sentiment is from a 'There She Goes' stamp set and I hadn't realised that neighbourhood is obviously spelt differently in the US until after I stamped it!!

I'm quite happy with how it turned out and love those two colours together although looking at it now my version of Sahara Sand is slightly off but hey ho.... I'll enter it anyway :0)

Thanks for stopping by :0)

Jenny x

The Early Bird.....

.....makes a card, it would seem :0)

At 4.30 this morning to be precise!!!

I was up early to say goodbye to Hannah when she went off to 

the airport so instead of going back to bed and not wanting to wake James

at that early hour,..... his teachers wouldn't thank me!!,

I watched the sun rise from my craft-room window 

whilst I made a card for Less is More this week :0)

It's a lucky dip week and we are to use the blog

 header as our inspiration for our cards

I'm not one for flourishes and so I went with the 

colours and a very, very loose version of the layout!!

..... okay let's just make that the colours then!!!

I love these fun retro cameras from There She Goes, in fact I made a 

pink version of this card for Hannah's birthday yesterday,

 I had an idea that it would work for LIM if I 

changed the colours and that's why it only took a short 

time to make  this morning!! The filmstrips are dienamics dies and 

they are so cute... the most exciting part are the little rounded 

corner rectangles that you are left with,

 I'm thinking of ideas how to use them already :0)

The LIM header colours also just fit nicely in with 

the Dynamic Duos challenge 

this week too, my choice being black :0)

Do you remember I said I would have a little giveaway to celebrate my birthday 

on the longest day?.....Well I have finally got round to getting it together and photographing it....

...... so I thought this should be the post to offer it on :0)

I'll use the random.org thingy sometime next week to pick someone from the comments on this 

post, you don't have to be a follower and I'll send it to any of the four corners of the earth!!

If you don't have a blog please leave an email address too.

Good luck and thanks for stopping by :0)

Jenny x

Keep Calm and read this long post!!!

Having seen the Patriotic colours challenge at Less is More earlier, an idea popped into my head and when that happens I just can't rest until it comes to life on my craft table!!! This in turned sparked a second idea.... so I have two cards to share with you, in a very picture heavy post, on this soggy Diamond Jubilee weekend....

The one thing we do well in this country is put up with the rain at special events and as usual, it's happened  that way so I thought a very British brolly would be just the job this weekend.
The Union Jack is from a pack of cupcake decorations and I stuck it to a sheet of card before die-cutting with the memory box umbrella. I cut several  to make the different coloured parts and to give it some thickness too.

The 'Keep Calm and Carry on' typeface was made on my iPad of all places!! I found a great app a while ago called Keep Calm (funnily enough). It lets you personalise your own poster and save them to your photo file, then its a case of taking them off your iPad and using them in Word like any other image..... gotta love the iPad :0)

So what was your second idea I hear you ask!...... well if its not pouring with rain it's scorching hot at these special summer events so wouldn't Union Jack flip flops be the perfect attire....

This is a new PTI die that arrived this week and it had it's first outing without the stamp set!
I left the flip flop straps plain so this could be a guys or gals card and basically I pinched two more flags and cut them the same way I did the brolly. You can also make out the debossed stripes on both cards, from the new Stripes Impression Plate from PTI.... I think this will become a firm favourite next to the Linen IP... I was going for the look of wood panelling :0)

I'm also entering one of these cards into the 'Right Royal Challenge' at a Passion for Papertrey and although the blue is slightly darker than the challenge graphic, I'm entering one of them into Dynamic Duos as well....it's still technically blue  :0)

In my post yesterday I showed you the photo of me dressed as the Queen of Hearts at our Silver Jubilee street party in 1977 so I thought I would dig out a couple more pictures to share in this post too...

It was definitely a party for the kids!!.... when I look at old photos like this I wonder where and what these children are doing now???

In case you're interested, I'm the little blondie on the right without a hat on and my little bruv is just off the picture to the left in his highchair.

That's me.... I still don't like wearing hats to this day!!!

Well done if you made it this far... I apologise for all the photos but Diamond Jubilees don't come around very often!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend and if you're in the UK, I hope you enjoy the festivities and have fun dodging the raindrops... don't forget that brolly *wink* 

I think I'll be watching it on the TV :0)

Jenny x

Sunshine Card and a Tutorial

I was about to say good morning but its already afternoon...time flies when your in your craft room!!!

I have a card to share for three challenges...yep I was quite impressed too, I love to combine them where I can :0)
I also have a tutorial for embossing nestabilitie frames onto card because a few of you have asked how I did it on this card but because I have a dire voice on video and not enough hands to video and demonstrate at the same time its a photo tutorial I'm afraid!

Back to my card though and I've used the colours from Dynamic Duos and included stitching for the challenge at Annabelle Stamps and circles for the challenge at Passion for Papertrey....STRIKE!!

I seem to have a bit of an obsession at the moment with the sun,clouds and sky in general but the colours at Dynamic Duos just seemed to fit this idea. 

I used a Cuttlebug die to make the sun and then hand stitched the rays around it. Not too easy to see but the blue card has been debossed with the PTI linen IP, then I die cut the bottom with a cloud border die, an idea I cased from JJ here... don't you just love JJ's card?

The top cloud is the positive version of the cloud die and I just popped it up on foam tape and stamped a PTI sentiment.

Here are the challenge graphics

Now for the tutorial and there are a few photos... I honestly thought I was one of the last to the party on this technique but I'm pleased to be able to share the sandwich stack I use in my Bigshot.

First of all I urge you to not force anything through your machines because this technique does pass easily through the Bigshot and I don't want to be responsible for broken machines. A number of factors have to be taken into account including how thick your card shims are and how worn your cutting plates are ...as you'll see mine are quite rough *shame*

This is the basic sandwich :

• Multipurpose platform with both tabs closed
• tan embossing mat (mine is about 1.5mm thick)
• your card with nestie taped to it with repositionable tape (I've used 300gsm card and washi tape because it doesn't mark and is easily removed) cutting side down.
• 2 x card shims (I use the grey card from the back of A4 refill pads so its thicker than cereal box card but not quite chipboard)
• 1 x Acrylic plate

.....so all stacked ready to go and this combo goes easily through the Bigshot, in fact it feels like it has done nothing!!..... I will add at this point your tan mat and cardboard shims should be bigger than your piece of card so as not to emboss extra lines onto your finished piece...this is most important if you are embossing straight onto the card front... I found that out the hard way!!

Voila!! the washi tape peels easily to reveal a subtle but visable frame. 

Now if you want more of an impression just add an extra shim which is exactly what I did only I hadn't got a piece the right size to hand so I thought I'd show you why the card needs to be bigger than the finished piece

Same sandwich... I know you didn't need to see the same photo twice... but this time I added my third strip of card under the other two card shims before running it through which is what the photo is showing, not only does it emboss a deeper, crisp frame but the strip of card de-bosses a panel across the card too... kind of cool actually :0)

Hope this helps and you have fun playing around with card to find the right combo for you :0)

If I've missed anything or not made something clear please just send me an email and I'll see if I can help you  out.... sorry if you have a Cuttlebug but I think the principle is the same on both machines, the tan mat under the card is the crucial piece of this sandwich.

Well I think that's enough from me, go forth and emboss your nesties with confidence :0)

See you tomorrow for CASual Fridays.

Jenny x

Dies : wonky circles-Cuttlebug, Cloud Border-Taylored Expressions, Linen Impression Plate-Papertrey Ink.

Sentiment stamp : 'Scattered Showers'  PTI.

Make the Day Special 'May' Blog Hop

Hello Everyone....

Today is our first blog hop over at Make the Day Special, a few of us Design Team girlies are showcasing the same stamp set and we hope to bring you a different set of stamps each month but for this first hop we are all using the Lawn Fawn set called Blissful Botanicals....

Lawn Fawn stamps are great to work with, they stamp like a dream and are perfect for colouring or paper piecing. Emily is the only UK stockist of these and many other International brands of stamps that would otherwise incur big postage and customs costs to buy from overseas, just pop over and visit the store for a browse at the end of the hop... I can highly recommend it *wink* :0)

The hop is purely for fun and to show you how each of us has used the stamps, I can't wait to go look at the rest of the projects as well....we kept it as a surprise to each other too :0)
You should arrived here from Clair's blog but if not, you can start the hop at the Make the Day Special blog.  This is the hop order:

1. Make the Day Special Blog
2. Clair
3. Jenny (that's me )
4. Kate
5. Lucia
6. Ruby

So with just six stops its a short and sweet blog hop and without further ado here's my card...

The thing I love about Blissful Botanicals most are those paired leaf fronds...they're fun to colour and look cute fussy cut, especially with a white edge to them!! I stamped them in Black Memento and coloured with Promarkers before cutting them out and making my little flower arrangement. 

I didn't want to pass up the chance to play along with a couple of challenges so I'm also entering my card into Retro Sketches and a new Colour Challenge blog called Dynamic Duos...

So now it's time to hop onto Kate's Blog to see what flowery goodness she has in store for you.... you know what, I might just see you there :0) 

Thanks so much for hopping along with us

Jenny x