covering up the grey

Playing catch up with my copics for carmakers class, and who doesn't wish they had pink hair. One of my regrets in life is when I was a student I never dyed my hair a crazy colour, to this day I'd love pink tips on my hair, or maybe blue. So I suppose this pink colouring was cathartic. I have no explanation for the green skin other than some latent rememberings of either star trek or wicked.

a change of pace - back to the birdies

So I was trying to use up a couple of the spare panels from the Laura Ashley birdie paper, and going for a slightly different look I used a green card base, and set it off with a cream layer to differentiate between the pattern and card stock.

I wanted a nice big sentiment to fill the bottom right corner and was concerned about the modern look of the Lawn Fawn scripty thanks but in the end I think it worked really well.

The sequin flowers I bought maybe 10 years ago, it is amazing what stash I'm finding as I move house and go through my supplies.

Laura Ashley patterned Paper
American Crafts cardstock
Lawn Fawn scripty thanks
Papermania gems

only shades of grey (and other colours)

I'm falling behind slightly in class, what with being so busy in work these last few weeks, but if I can grab 5 minutes of colouring every so often I do, so I was trying day 3 techniques of mixing things with grey on two colours that I find difficult to blend.

Mr Foxy is coloured with terracotta then shaded with either grey squirrel or warm grey 3, the second image isn't quite done, he needs smoothing over, but I left it last night as I ran out of time. The first image is too uniform...

Mr Dog uses the same two greys, but this time the base colour was sleigh bell, I need to add a bit more depth to his tail but he worked out ok. I also got a bit adventurous colouring in the white of his muzzle.

I have to say these lawn fawn images are wonderful, despite owning lots of sets I don't own either of these... yet!

- F

dcwv birthday stack - the road goes ever on and on

Here again I've taken the 8x8 card stock and cut it down to make a card measuring 4 x 5.5".  This leaves me with a strip 2.5" wide which is perfect for either cutting little strips or die cutting bits from.

Since this paper is a little on the busy side I wanted any image to be quite bold and graphic, so this Sizzlits present (the first die I ever bought) was perfect for the job. This was such a quick card to put together even with the layering of the die cut, that I did the whole thing in less than 10 minutes... I then spent the next half hour cutting everything in order to make a few copies of this card for my mum to make.

DCWV birthday stack - card stock, patterned paper

Sizzix sizzlits present from doodle birthday?

Spellbinders nestabilites circle die

Home printed message and embroidery floss from stash

dcwv birthday stack - and so it begins

So I was unpacking some boxes (yes I'm still doing that because we bring a car load to our new house every time we visit our old house) and found a DCWV 8x8 birthday stack - patterned papers, card, stickers, vellum greetings and I thought 'I could use that, everything I need in in one pack'. And so I started cutting, and trying to use every last scrap, so what you have here is the product of a few hours work spread over a couple of weeks.

I used the 8x8 card cutting off a strip to make card blanks which measured 4 x 5.5 for some of the cards, I prefer the slightly squatter American size cards so I thought this worked well. I also mixed in some old favourites, stars cut from American Crafts Simply Chic papers and Lawn Fawn stamps and dies.

Here you see some of the stickers from the kit, which don't look too bad to me, after having printed a pile of mixed messages I finally admitted that I needed way more happy birthday greeting and so printed a couple of sheets of just happy birthday.

DCWV birthday stack - atterned paper, card and stickers
American Crafts - simply chic coloured card, ribbon
Lawn Fawn - puffy stars dies, a birdie told me stamps and dies, year one stamp
Uniball Signo white gel pen, sequins

do or do not, there is no try

So in class today we were being taught techniques on how to blend two different colours together, and were shown various techniques. So I continue to colour the flip flops and have to say how disappointed I am with some of my results. I think the difference between copics and promarkers/flexmarkers is now evident.

I started off with my first flip flop colouring with two flex markers, one pale blue the other pink, attempting the tip to tip technique. The colours easily muddied and despite carefully colouring within the lines the colour started to bleed outwith the border. I had more success with latter attempts where I used a mix of promarkers and flexmarkers but the feathering technique doesn't work well with bullet nibs and the colour took a lot of working (in small circles) in order to get the blend, its ok, but has perhaps convinced me a little more that there is a benefit to moving up to copics.

padawan of the copics

So despite not owning a single copic marker I'm taking the online card class copics for card making. I have my promarkers which have served me well, but I've been looking at copics for a few reasons...

principally I really like the brush nib of the flex markers, but flex markers come in a far more limited pallet, secondly copics are far more transparent with blending families and colour codes. My promarkers are in a lot of cases 5 years or more old and drying up, so as I think about replacing them I think about switching up.

This class gives me the opportunity to see copics in action, but also to learn stuff which is relevant for my current crafting supplies.



Unfortunately I didn't plan well enough to have enough Neenah to print all of the required sheets, so I have the first couple from the preview day, and about the last 6 pages from this weeks test page samples, but not the boxes or balloons I was supposed to be colouring in today, alas... so I tried to take some of todays techniques and apply them to the 'prep' sheet of flip flops. I've specifically used the  flick blending to white technique around the edge of the first two sets of flip flops, this has been done with the brush nibs of flex markers. Specifically I think I like Kelly's tip of leaving areas white and colouring in circles when using the bullet nibs of promarkers.

more sympathy cards

I hate making sympathy cards, invariably when they are required you don't want to make them, and so when I saw this paper I thought there was an opportunity to make a couple of sympathy cards to have 'in stock'.

 I thought a simple design was best and let the print of the paper hold the design. I have probably had this pile of Laura Ashley papers for 5 years, they had left me uninspired before, but I feel work well for this. I printed the sentiments on cream card.

Patterned Paper Laura Ashley
Sequins, ribbon, flowers & twine stash

sandcastles in the sky

I have so much stuff that I bought years ago and I haven't used, either because I was keeping it for good, because it got forgotten, because I bought it whilst living in one of the 8 houses I've lived in in the last 5 years, because I had too much stuff at the time or because 'it was a bargain'.

Now I'm a little more settled, I'm gathering all the stuff I've bought from the numerous cities I've lived in, and trying to fit it into my little craft room, so every card I can make, every old piece of paper I can use, not only will it aid the charity where I donate them, and it helps clear my craft room.

Combining old with new, is definitely helping me along, and I've dug out my crop-a-file...


Lawn Fawn Penelope's Blossom, Life is Good, Scattered Showers
WRMK Eyelet
American Crafts ribbon

why did I buy some of this stuff?

So I've been trying to use up some of the papers from that Laura Ashley with a theme and variations based upon this card. Using the same supplies and the same layout this is a simple exercise in production for the charity box.

Patterned paper Laura Ashley
Ribbon American Crafts
Glitter Tape American Crafts
Card DCWV, papermill
Stamps Lawn Fawn - Good Fortune, Penelope's Blossoms
Gems Papermania
Other sequins

I realised I hadn't posted this

There are few people I can think of who are more perfect for each other than the couple for whom this card was intended. So it became a challenge to make a perfect wedding card for them... it was an unusual wedding for the uk, on the beech, in St Andrews with an alter of surf boards.

I stressed about this card, until I realised how perfect my 6x6 paper pad of Crate Paper The Pier was. I intended to get out my silhouette to cut the surfboards, but I'm still not straight after the move so I drew a template by hand and 'decorated' each with really old DCWV rub ons.

I was so pleased with it, I just hope the couple liked it.

Crate Paper The Pier
Lawn Fawn Stitched Journalling Card
Lawn Fawn Penelope's Blossoms
Studio Calico wood veneer hearts
misc other

a gift for jane

When I was very little I was taught to sew, I completed my first cross stitch on canvas when I was 3, I was given my own sewing machine at 4, by 11 I made the skirt that was my school uniform. You see my mum is an outstanding seamstress and had some training as a tailor too. She taught me because she expected me to know, to sew, knit, crochet, mend, darn, craft and never to be idle.

Now my husband jokes about how I would have made the perfect regency wife, but I don't do much pretty stuff any more, I cover chairs, or make curtains or mend clothes, I found with embroidery they just got finished and put in a drawer. This is the first embroidery I've done in nearly 10 years, and it has a use so I will probably do another (ok, I will do another I bought 1 kg of lavender!), but here it is a gift for a friend.


I started with cutting the felt, I had no iron on vilene on hand, but it would have supported the felt, which had a tendency to fall apart. I had no particular design in mind at this point, so I cut more than I needed.

Then I laid it out and pinned it, with my rough design before taking apart to sew on individual components. (I was sewing on a 4" hoop and so the design was bigger than the hoop, hence having to take it apart again).

If I'd had yellow felt I would probably have just appliquéd the sun, but as it was I had to embroider so I used the felt as a template to give it a little bulk, first sewing over the beams (that bent beam got covered by a cloud :)) 

After completing all of the appliqué I stamped the sunshine and then back stitched over it, that is a french knot on the dot of the i.

Sewing up to a pillow about 4 1/2" wide, with a two inch opening at the bottom. Ribbon was sewn in the top of the pillow and secured with another row of stitching. Then the excess was trimmed and a zig zag stitched taken around all  of the raw edges, I sewed the three closed sides together for speed.

Just to put a shout out to my old benina here, it is 18 years older than I, and my mum bought it when she went away to college. It gets serviced every other year but is still going strong.

Didn't I say I had a lot of lavender!!!

And here is the finished article

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom :).

sorry to hear of your loss

Such a difficult card to make, you never like to have them 'in stock' but hate making them when required.

Papers are Prima, but I forget the details, stamps lawn fawn and stampin' up

pretty flowers

Really pleased with this card, its another kit for my mother, there was so much die cutting to be done after the stamping, looks ok though especially with that mystery paper I found.

Loving my new French Pastry die from Cherry Lynn.