Mixed Up Saturday featuring Michele's magazine Review

Cheryl 

Good Morning Ladies,

Are you all ready for a relaxed weekend? Storm 'jorge' (pronounced 'Horhay') is bringing more rain and wind, I don't think  that any river can take another drop of rain! The rain yesterday was more than enough to cause chaos let alone what today will bring!
The only Silver lining is that we have a good excuse to stay in our craft rooms!!

Do any of you suffer from S.T.A.B.L.E Syndrome???.......

Today's crafts start with Cheryl's amazing Plaque, made for a lovely crafty Friend. 

Cheryl has used various mediums on her plaque, texture paste, stamping, a lovely tassel and the loveliest touch is that Handwritten Sentiment,  such a thoughtful touch.  Thank you so for sharing your plaque with us Cheryl xxx

Karen 

Our Karen has delighted us with three more lnotted friends from Kerry Lord's books. The first two are a 'Monkey ' and a 'Quokka', yes a 'Quokka' is an actual animal, here is the Wikipedia description

 "The quokka, the only member of the genus Setonix, is a small macropod about the size of a domestic cat. Like other marsupials in the macropod family, the quokka is herbivorous and mainly nocturnal. Wikipedia"

These two are for the A-Z of Animals that Karen is Crocheting for Oscar.   

The last Crocheted Cutie is another Alien for the Charity Box.

Karen I love all of your creations, thank you also for the Education,  I now know what a Quokka is!

Thanks for sharing XXX 

Michele's Magazine Review

Hi Ladies,

Cardmaking & Papercraft has a fun set of Dies & Stamps as the free gift this month.

Here’s a look at some of the features inside the magazine.

Look at some of the great things you can use the free gift to make.

Great project to make as a present for someone.

Interesting article on using fringe papers or your border dies. I like to look at these features and think what I could use in my extensive stash rather than buying anything new.

Fabulous fancy fold cards which would definitely stand out!

You could easily use the Stampin Up Curvy Keepsake die to make these Easter treat boxes.

Hope I’ve inspired you to look through your stash and improvise with different Dies or stamps you already have.

Michele

Thanks Michele for a great magazine Review,  I actually have ghis magazine and I am looking forward to playing with that  lovely stamp and die set.
There are some great features in it as Michele has highlighted, something for every kind of crafter. 
I really appreciate you making time to do these Reviews each weel my lovely XXX 

That's all for today my lovelies,

Love and hugs to all,


Sandra
Xxxxxxx

Your Next Challenge & Happy Birthday Janet

Good Morning Ladies,

Firstly today please join me in wishing our Dear Friend Janet a Very Happy Birthday, followed by a year of good health and happiness xxxx

Your Next Challenge

For this weeks challenge I would like you all to have a go at making cards/projects that feature something 'Old' and something 'New' . Karen inspired me to set this challenge, so let's do her proud !

The 'Old' can be stamps, dies, embossing folders, papers etc, so you can get your old Sue Wilson Dies out or any of you that used to watch Sue on Create & Craft back in the day that Spellbinders were the biggest Die and only one of a couple of companies that were making dies, Sue used to put collections together and they used to sell out in minutes, looking back on my collections a lot of them were the same, but they were 'all the rage' back then!!  Mind you I will say that some of Sara Davies new dies look VERY similar to some of the ornate rectangle Spellbinders so they may be coming back into popularity.  We all have old paper pads and stamp sets too, so it will be fun to get them out and blow the dust off.

The 'New' can be anything that you have bought in recent months, I am not going to put a time on it, if you consider it to be 'new' thats fine by me!

As always I can't wait to see your cards xxx

*******

I made today's card for this Challenge, so for the 'Old' I used SW Lattice Background die, and SW Double Stitched Rectangles to make the frame.  The paper that I used for the background and for the flowers is a really Old Creative Expressions 8 x 8 pad that I bought for £1 in a bargain bin, I think that it was the first paper pad that Sue Wilson designed.

I had to cut the lattice background twice to make it big enough to fill the frame I had cut, so I cut my piece of patterned paper, place the die cut lattice over it, (I added foam pads for depth), I then cut myself a base card to fit my background and adhered them together, I added foam pads to my die cut frame and placed that over the lattice, so my card was complete apart from the embellishing.

So for the 'New' I used the Fern die that is featured on the latest edition of 'Simply cards and Papercraft' magazine, the one that Michele featured on her magazine review last Saturday.  I loved it as soon as I saw it, so when Lucy asked me to go to Asda with her on Wednesday that was the first thing on my shopping list.  As soon as we got home I was in my craft room and it kind of gave me the inspiration for this card.

So I die cut 4 fern leaves in 2 shades of green card and arranged them to one side of my card base, I then die cut some flowers out of the same paper as I used for the background, I shaped them in my Heartfelt Creations shape tool and added them to my card with a crystal in the centre, to add my sentiment I used another 'old' banner die, which is used to stamp my sentiment on. I cut a slightly larger mat for the banner to tie it in to the background etc.

I hope you like my card, I also hope that you enjoy this weeks challenge.

Thank you so much Karen for the idea for this weeks challenge, I have an inspiration card from Karen that I will share with you on Tuesday. xxx

I hope that Storm Jorge doesn't cause any major problems for any of you this coming weekend, it's bringing more wind and rain I believe !

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend,

Love and hugs for all,

Sandra

xxxxxx

Pat's Gorgeous Groovi card

Good Morning Ladies, 

It sounds as though some of you have some very exciting weather, we had a little hail stone shower and a bit of sleet but other than that it's been really high winds and rain, I wouldn't mind seeing a bit of snow.  

It's so awful seeing all of those poor people with flooded homes, it seems to be getting worse for some, I can't imagine being unable to live in your home for months on end while it dries out.  My heart really does go out to them. The river Thames seems to be getting higher and higher, so I can imagine other places are even worse. 

Today's beautiful card is one of Pat's gorgeous Groovi cards, it is just so lovely, the petals of thise pretty daisies have been embossed to perfection, they stand out even more against that lovely green background,  the vibrant yellow centres really make them pop too, the highlight of the card is that stunning lace border,  I now know how much work goes into a border with that much detail.  There is cut work as well as the embossing, which gives even more beautiful detail and texture.  This must of taken ages to finish Pat. 

Thank you so much for sharing your card with us xxx

Sue I hope your antibiotics kick in fast and that you start to feel better really soon.  I hope little Chris is lucky and doesn't get too many chicken pox, sending hugs XXX 

Sue T, I'm sorry that you haven't got much crafting in, the good deed that you are doing for your lovely neighbour is more rewarding, although it can sometimes be frustrating waiting for workmen to arrive.  I look forward to seeing your next craft project when you get things sorted. It was lovely to hear from you. XXX 

Lynda it was lovely to see you in yesterday, maybe Terry could bring you some craft tools etc into the lounge, so that you can do some crafting there. I hope your physio is going well my lovely XXX 

Love and hugs on their way to all of you,

Sandra 

xxxxxxx

Some Bright and Cheerful inspiration

Good Morning Ladies ,

I thought I would share some Bright and cheerful inspiration with you today, I had forgotten that I had the last two stamps, I think that we can all be guilty of doing that from time to time, we buy it then use it for your version of the card that inspired you and then it gets put away! Until you look back at photo's and think, "I forgot I had that l hD that stamp", I think that these are both Honey Doo stamps.
The top card is all Berry Burst and White with a little Old Olive for foliage and swirls, the background is a piece of Berry Bursy Dsp that I embossed and then punched the flowers and shaped them and arranged them over the green swirl and leaves.
The Second card is stamped  and coloured with Honey Doo Mica Powders mixed with water to a paint like consistency, I just used a paintbrush to paint in the flowers, having the outlines embossed really helps too.
The third card is again a Honey Doo stamp that I stamped onto a blue background and coloured with Stampin Blend (alcohol markers) I believe,
I die cut some vellum butterflies that I had stamped to add a little fun to the card.
I hope that these give you some inspiration.

Pat came over yesterday and we both spent the afternoon making some Groovi cards, I finished one and Pat was busy working on the one from out last Groovi Class, I haven't even attempted mine yet.
Pat's looked amazing, I can't wait to see it coloured in and finished.  There are a few tricky techniques on this one that are taking me a while to master! I am waiting on a tool that I had to get replaced before I can finish mine as the one I bought has some extra long needles that shouldn't be there, it makes trying to line it up impossible.  Clarity were fantastic though and replaced it without any quibbling.

We are all having haircuts bright and early this morning, then I hope to go and play in my craft room.
I will be needing the heater on though as it is really cold here at the moment.  Paul said last night that the Snow and Ice team were on standby, which got me all excited, we did have sleet at about 5pm, I doubt it will be any more than that though.

I hope that you all have a lovely day and that those of you feeling under the weather start to feel brighter soon,

love and huge hugs to all,

Sandra
xxxxxx

More Bright & Cheerfulness!!!

Good Morning Ladies,

I didn't achieve the day in the craft room that I was determined to have as I was knocked sideways by another flaming UTI, this one came from nowhere and there was no gentle build up to it either, my goodness me I did not know what to do with myself at 6.15am yesterday morning!  I rummaged around and found some Cymalon powders so took those straight away, followed by lots of water, cranberry tablets, I ended up having to take extra pain relief too, I wanted to give it a couple of hours to make sure it wasn't just a cystitis kind of thing but I soon felt  all of the other symptoms that accompany a UTI, I am beginning to wonder if my body has become immune to the cranberry tablets I have been taking and therefore they aren't as effective, because I had all but eradicated these infections.  It's so frustrating, I am guessing it's the after effects of not drinking enough on Saturday, as we are up really early and out of the door, where usually I would have had a large glass of water and at least two cups of tea, we both took our water bottles but neither of us emptied them, we did take the flask and made two cups of tea too, but it was clearly not enough.  I ended up feeling that rough that I had to go back to bed where I slept for another 2/3 hours, I will say that I couldn't sleep the night before and was watching Tracy Evans YouTube video's until 3am, thats kind of normal for me though.  I think I become more susceptible to these things when I am a little run down, going to two shows on two consecutive weekends was probably a bit too much.  (lesson learnt)!

Our weather seems as bad as it was during the recent storms with really high winds and heavy rain, It's getting a bit boring now to be honest.

Now onto today's card, I ordered myself this stamp a few weeks ago as I love it and have wanted it for a while but it was just not available in this country, so I reluctantly ordered it from Amazon and it came from the USA, now what worries me with that is that they can add Import Tax without warning, which can double the cost of your purchase, this company did say that there would be no Tax added though so I went for it (after checking that the price was good with Val and Snazzy's as she stocks Hero Arts and knows the price of most products) she said it was a good price so I went for it, I wasn't expecting it to be here for a while yet so it was a lovely surprise. I couldn't wait to have a play, it was the excitement of opening this stamp that made me drag myself out of bed and into the craft room.
I just went for a super simple card to start with, I placed the stamp in my stamp tool and inked it with Candied Apple, Ripe Persimmon and Squeezed Lemonade Distress Oxide inks.  I wanted a matching mat so I took the Ripe Persimmon ink pad and swiped it around the sides of a piece of white card 1/4 of an inch bigger than my topper. I then added some matching ribbon, and mounted it onto a white base card, for the sentiment I coloured another piece of card with the Ripe Persimmon ink and stamped the 'Birthday Wishes' on and added white embossing powder and heat set, I die cut it with a SU Tag die and tucked it under my ribbon knot.
Super Simple but I think it's bright and cheerful !!

Pat is coming over today which will be lovely, I have some new Groovi plates for us both to have a play with, I think that we will both be having a gentle day today.

I hope that you all have a lovely day,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra
xxxxxx

A Bright and Cheerful start to the week

Good Monday Morning Ladies,

I hope that you have all had a lovely weekend, it was nice just to have a relaxing day yesterday, my poor legs needed a 'do nothing' kind of day.  We basically had a relaxed morning, a late breakfast/brunch, then Paul went out in the garden with Harley for a bit and I started to clear a space in my craft room for my new goodies, I didn't really buy that much this time though, some paint, ink pads and a couple of stamp sets, I will share a photo later this week.

Today's card is my first Bright & cheerful challenge card, I used one of my new stamp sets 'Aall & Create' plate #270 'Just Grow' (I love it).
I stamped the image and coloured it with Tim Holtz Distress Markers, I tried a couple of other things but the Barn Door red worked well Aged Mahogany for shading. I used a Versamark Pen over the top so that I could emboss the flowers.
I used the same ink to create a mat for my topper and to colour the Spotted Tulle Ribbon but the colour didn't look the shade (no idea why).  But I think it all works.
I die cut the 'Hello' twice and then added versamark over one and embossed with clear powder twice which gave a raised shiny finish, it didn't really pick up in the photo though.
I thought it needed something else so I stamped 'My Friend' in the same ink and punched it out and added a Black mat to lift if from the background.
I can't wait to see your 'Bright and Cheerful' cards.

I am going to spend the day in my craft room today, having a another attempt at my Gelli Plate...'Watch this space!

I hope that you all have a lovely day,

Love and hugs to all

Sandra
xxxxxx

Your TicTacToe Challenge cards

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

I hope you are all relaxed and enjoying your Sunday, we are having a 'lazy' day today after yesterday's busy day.

It really didn't feel the same in the cat on the way to Farnborough yesterday, we usually have our excited crafty chatter, talking about what we have on our shoppibg lists and what we were all hoping to see, the journey home was the same, we usually have a bit of a 'show and tell ", going through our shopping.  I don't think Paul was as excited to see my craft goodies!! 

I do hope that everyone that has been feeling rough is starting to feel better. 

The craft show itself was smaller than in previous years and not quite as well laid out, I managed to find some things to buy though 😜! 

It was so lovely to spend time with Brenda, we saw Brenda (little lamb) too which was lovely, she came and had lunch with us, it was lovely to catch up.  

We sat on a table with a lovely bunch of ladies, who we had a lovely chat with, one of them lived in Banbury and one used to live in Witney (it's a small world)!  They did say that they would pop onto the blog and say 'hi' ….

'Hello Ladies' if you are looking in, it was lovely to meet you all xxx

Let's look at your incredible cards......

Karen 

Karen has used a SW Papercuts die for her gorgeous Challenge card, I absolutely love your beautiful design Karen,  first of all the colours you have chosen are so lovely, I love your background piece that you created with Masks/stencils. The flowers and cute foliage really lift your card, giving that touch of luxury and  turning into a gift, adding a frame to a card makes such a difference too.

Karen's Description:

"Here’s a cc I’ve just done circles (or mask)-flowers-birthday 

Honey Doo mask inked with Picked raspberry Spun sugar and Shaded violet DO

Paper cuts Happy Birthday 

SW camellia flowers and a WISH die foliage I wasn’t going to add the extra flowers but I managed to dent the frame! So instead of a butterfly I used flowers to hide it"

Thank you so much Karen for such a beautiful,  inspirational card xxx

Michele

Michele reached for the older SW dies for this week's TicTacToe Challenge too, I love this card Michele, could be used for Men or Ladies, young or old, I love the colours you have used too.

Michele's Description:

"Challenge card-Neutrals/birthday/Circles. Sue Wilson striplet Die, Spellbinders deckle  edge rectangle Dies for the sentiment, the sentiment Die was a magazine freebie years ago" Thanks so much Michele for a fantastic Challenge card xxx

 Brenda

A lovely Birthday card that works perfectly for this challenge from Brenda, using Scalloped Circle Dies to create the card base itself, then another layer that has that lovely Sweet Poppy stencilled wreath image that Brenda has glittered.  Two pretty shades of narrow ribbon adorned with some die cut flowers finish this gorgeous card.

Categories used:  Circle/Ribbon/Happy Birthday

Thank you so much Brenda for such a fantastic, inspirational card xxx

Janet

Janet, wow, 4 stunning cards, thank you so very much, your cards are amazing, you really work wonders with those Tonic Dies Janet, those cards with the ribbon woven through look so luxurious,  I absolutely love the clock face card too, that die could be used for so many occasions and can be used with so many card styles, from pretty floral to vintage.

Janet's Description:

"Here are my offerings for this week.

My first card is made using Heartfelt Creations dies and I used Flowers/Circles/Window.

My second card is made using Heartfelt Creations die again and this time I used Flowers/Ribbon/Birthday.

My third card is made using Tonic Dies and I used Texture/Ribbon/Circles

My last card is one I made some time ago and again is made using Tonic Dies with Circles/ribbon/Birthday."

Thank you so much Janet for an awesome display of cards xxx

Lilian

Lilian has created beautiful birthday card for this week's TicTacToe Challenge.  That frame is stunning Lilian, I know you used a Mask but did you place the mask directly onto the card and then add the blue ink after? The glittered paste gives both incredible detail and great texture to your card.

Those beautiful birds and flowers embellish it perfectly, the colours work perfectly. 

Lilian used Categories: Mask /Flowers/ Happy Birthday  

Absolutely lovely card Lilian thank you so much for taking part xxx

Maria 

Maria used 'Neutral' tones for her  Challenge card this week, it's nice to see the older SW cards being used again, i am pretty sure that most of us have them but we never get them out anymore, I feel a Challenge coming on!!! 

Maria used Categories: Texture/Neutral/ Happy birthday 

Thank you so much Maria for taking part in this week's Challenge,  I think your card would be great for a man too, I hope you have started to  feel better my lovely xxx

Ladies thank you so much for such a wonderful display of cards, all so different. all so inspirational.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend my lovelies,

Love and Hugs to all,

Sandra
xxxxxx

Mixed Up Saturday

Milly-May's Easter Bonnet 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,

I hope that you are all ok, sadly there are a few of you that are feeling under the weather and I want to send you all a gentle hug 🤗

We are off to Farnborough today, sadly Sue and Pat are both unable to come with us as they both feel poorly, I hope they both start feeling better soon, Brenda and Brenda Little lamb are both going so we will be looking out for them, for me it's the friends that make the day, the shopping is fun too!

Let's get on to today's crafts and shopping and then we have Michele's magazine Review of course.

Milly-May's Easter Bonnet starts us off today, it is absolutely beautiful, Milly-May started with a pretty pink hat and then picked out a selection of Easter themed decorations to add to it, the Roses weren't quite the right colour, that was no problem for Milly-May, she took a brayer and added ink to them!  So clever, Cheryl made sure that she was confident with the 'Cool Melt' Glue gun before allowing her to use it, clever little lady used a 'Lolly stick'  (why didn't I think of that?).  

The most impressive part of this beautiful hat is how Symmetrical it is, Milly-May has shown incredible skill in her planning and decoration of gorgeous Easter Bonnet, please join me in telling her what an amazingly talented crafter she is.  I can't wait to see your next project Milly-May, thank you so much for sharing it with us xxx

*******//*******

 Karen's Shopping

Karen has shared her Stamperama Shopping with us, I can't wait for your review on that 'Versatile card for crafters' Karen, I haven't seen it before so I can't wait to hear if it lives up to it's name.  I love both of the sentiment stamps you bought, I also have the Honey Doo Paint splats, (although I haven't used them yet) I have seen some fantastic Brightly coloured cards made with this set, which would be perfect for this weeks challenge.  The Spectrum Noir sparkle pens are great and give an incredibly even coat of glitter to any surface, love the SW Tag set, really versatile set. I'm not sure what the 'Eclipse' thingy is at the top of your photo so I will leave that for you to describe.

Thank you so much for sharing your  shopping with us, I can't wait to see what you create with it.

XXX

My Shopping 

I really didn't buy that much last weekend, partly because I knew I had Farnborough this week too.

I have wanted to try the Alcohol ink Lift off pad for some time, so I picked that up.  I went with the gorgeous Aall & Create Masks on my shopping list, I want to use them with my Gelli Plate ! 

The other thing on my list was Sentiment stamps, I really like the Woodware ones, as there was a good variety on there, the Dragonfly was an impulse buy, because I loved it.!

The last photo is of my Card-I-O collection, after watching the lovely lady demo them and make it look so easy I just couldn't resist, (I didn't find it quite as easy but enjoyed playing with them)!

No doubt I will be adding to this lot today!

Michele's Magazine Review 

Hi Ladies,

Simply Cards & Papercraft has a really lovely set of stamps & Dies free this month.

Here’s some ideas from inside the magazine.

Here’s the first feature using the free gifts.

More ideas.

Even more ideas!

This feature shows some ideas using this free gift plus the Dies from Diecutting Essentials featured last week.

There’s free Digi downloads by Ella’s design available this month.

Lovely ideas & inspiration for men’s cards.

That’s all for this week so
Happy Crafting.

Love Michele.











Thank's so much Michele for another fantastic review, I will definitely be buying this magazine as I LOVE that free die and stamp set, Ferns are just so pretty!  I really like Paula too, there is loads of inspiration in the magazine too.
The 'Cards for Men' piece is really interesting too, Sue and I saw those stamps on so many different stands last weekend, they are perfect for men cards.
Thanks again Michele XXX


I hope that you all have a lovely weekend,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra
xxxxxx

Your Next Challenge.....

Good Morning Ladies,

Oh YAY it's Friday!!!!  This week has been a long one, I think that for me it's because I haven't seen my lovely craft companions, seeing them on a Tuesday and Wednesday really breaks the week up for me, so I think that I really notice it when it don't see them.

I was sad to read about IconUK, the reason they have gone out of business is even more frustrating, I do remember that one of the companies got told off at Ally Pally for pricing their dies etc too low, I think that another stall holder had complained as they were cheaper than he had his dies priced.  You would think that it would be up to the retailer to sell them for what they see fit.  I hope poor Ben at Set Craft doesn't go the same way as I think that they were a close match to Icon prices.

Your Next Challenge 

Ladies I think that what we could all do with some cheering up after all this 'Doom  & Gloom' Weather and all the other nonsense in the news!
So I would like you to all make a card or some cards that feature Cheerful Spring Colours, all bright and cheerful, you can use anything colourful from Paint Splodges to rainbows to a beautiful display of flowers, the choice is yours,  I want the blog to be 'buzzing with brightness next Sunday.

My first card for this challenge, is a first time try for me, I was absolutely mesmerized by the lady on the Card-1-O stamp, she was making the most beautiful cards with these same stamps, she showed me how she did it and I was HOOKED, I wanted all of the sets but that would have meant walking home so I just picked out a couple.
It is my first proper go at making a full card with the Card-I-O stamps and it was fairly straightforward, you simply get the outer shape with the Branch die, building up the wreath by stamping at the top of you card, then you stamp at the bottom and then the sides, I found it easier to turn my card around as I went, the other tip she gave me  was to stamp the branch stamp a few times without re-inking the stamp, this gives a more filled in wreath,  I was quite pleased with if for a first go, it's by no means perfect but it's not that bad either. You can use whatever colours you like, I used different makes of ink pad too, the hardest thing for me was it not being Symmetrical, I am a bit of 'symmetry sally' and doing anything 'Random' is a real struggle for me, so I almost had to close my eyes and go for it. I am going to use green for the branch and pretty yellow and orange for the flowers on my next one.

Your card doesn't need to feature flowers, it can be anything as long as it is Bright, cheerful and Spring like!
I can't wait to see your cards....

Another craft meet up tomorrow as we are off on our Annual trip to Farnborough, we will let you know if it was a success or a shambles!

Have a lovely weekend ladies,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra
xxxxxx

Another Challenge card

Good Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all well and enjoying a break in the weather, it was chilly today but no rain. 

Sophie and I were huddled in the craft room with the radiator on full blast, its lovely having someone to chat to while crafting, or in Sophie's case 'animating'! 

Oh I must get the 'Soap Box' out for a mini rant, I went online to order tickets for the Craft show at Farnborough on Saturday,  I looked for information on Concessionary tickets for disabled guests/carers but there was nothing  anywhere, so I emailed the organisers and got a reply to say that they don't do any 'Concessionary tickets but the 'Person pushing the wheelchair goes free'!   Why they don't publish that information I don't understand,  I wonder how many people have paid not realising.

Also went we first attended this show about 3 years ago, it was £4  and indoor parking beside the entrance was free. 

The tickets were advertised at £7.50 each, so I added 3 to my basket, got to checkout and the cost was £27, I rechecked my basket and scratched my head,  (no, I don't have nits)! By my reckoning 3 × £7.50 = £ 22.50 right??!!

The cheeky beggars show the price EXCLUDING VAT, have you ever bought tickets anywhere that didn't include VAT?? 

I guess it's to make the tickets appear cheaper, the tickets were in fact £9 each.  I hope the show is worth the price hike!!! 

I will say that I answered a ladies question on their Facebook group, she enquired about wheelchair hire, I knew they did loan them as Margaret used one last year, so I explained that to her and made sure that i made it clear that anyone pushing a wheelchair goes free! Information that should have been available to anyone!! rant over!  Soap box stowed! 

Today's card was made using Categories:  

Neutrals/Texture/Ribbon

I used stamps and die cuts from the SU 'Cake Soiree' suite to create the cake image, the 'texture' comes from the embossed background and the Ribbon is silver edged satin ribbon  which I used to tie in with the silver on the Cake stand and the silver mat/layer.  

A simple card, but I think it works, the touches of silver give the card a touch of luxury.  

I hope you enjoy your dsy ladies, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra 

xxxxxcc

The last of the cards for 'Inlovearts'

Good Morning Ladies,

We had a bit of a break from the rain today thankfully, although there is a lot more forecast for later in the week.  It was just nice to hear the birds singing again.  I can't wait to be able to get the washing out on the line.

I had one of those 'achieve nothing' days yesterday, I set myself a goal of making three cards, well that was a joke, I started having a play with some of the new things that I bought at the weekend, only to discover that a lot of the things we buy because we have seen someone else use them and make it look so easy to achieve great results, are a bit of a let down (well for the novice anyway)!!
I will get the hang of this Gelli plate if it kills me, I think I know what the problem might be and it's something that I was chatting to the 'Card -I-o' lady with on Saturday, I am a bit of a perfectionist and things like the Gelli Plate are not an 'exact' product, what I mean is that the results are meant to be a bit messy and irregular, with bits missing etc, so I guess I have to learn to look at things differently, which is hard if your mind is set in a certain way.  A lot of the people we watch have spent a lot of time 'perfecting' their art before we get to see it too, which is something we can easily forget, I expect their first few tries ended up in the bin too!
Watch this space for some 'irregular' non-symmetrical, non-cotswold crafter style cards!!

Today's card is the last of the cards that I made for ' Inlovearts' using their 'Hollow Frame Die' I used it to make a shaped Easel card, I die cut it out of 300gsm card first and then cut two more pieces out of a Chloe's Design pad that I bought a while back, the pattern is made up of tiny gold foiled 🦋 Butterflies.  I attached one piece to the bottom and one to my card front.  I then die cut a Gold Mirror card square and then coloured another square with Victorian Velvet Distress Oxide as it matched the background colour really well.  I stamped my sentiment onto the coloured square with Versamark ink (making sure the ink was dry and I used an anti static bag too) before I added the gold embossing powder.
To finish the card I used the dies that came with the Chloe's Butterfly collection to die cut a Gold Mirror butterfly and a tiny butterfly die that matches the design on the paper perfectly to die cut some of the butterflies from the background paper, I added the larger one to act as the stopper for the easel and the others I dotted around the card for decoration.
A simple card but it looks quite sweet up close.

I hope that you all have a lovely day however you are spending it,

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra
xxxxxx