Mothering Sunday Cards

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a wonderful Mothering Sunday weekend. For those who don't read my Facebook page I had a bit of a disaster with a can of Crafter's Companion Spray and Stick adhesive yesterday and I now have a lot less hair than I did before the weekend started. Before anyone assumes the worst it didn't explode or anything well not in the fire sense anyway but wouldn't stop squirting liquid glue everywhere even with the nozzle off! Unfortunately even though I took the precaution of spraying the stamps I wanted to mount in an old box, the stuff went everywhere as I tried in vain to stop it including in my hair. I ended up holding the can underwater in a bucket until it emptied out. Please don't panic if you have this product in your stash, mine was at least 3 years old and I'm sure it's not something that happens very often. The glue is extremely sticky and it was very hard to get out of my hair, loads came out as I worked on it with a fine toothed comb and I'll confess that after nearly an hour (my head was really sore at this point) I ended up cutting two big clumps of hair out as I couldn't face any more combing. Luckily I am blessed with a generous amount of hair so I'm able to sort of hide the straggly bits left by my scissor work.

Gluey disasters aside I'd like to share a couple of cards I made for my mum this Mothering Sunday. By the way has anyone noticed how hard it is to find a Mothering Sunday sentiment stamp? If anyone is interested 
the third Sunday before Easter is called Mothering Sunday not Mother's Day as it is commonly referred to. Although we celebrate our mums on this day in the UK it's actually a day when you are meant to go back to your mother church - the place where you were baptised - and dates back to the 16th century. Mother's Day in the USA is the 2nd Sunday in May and dates back to the late 1800s and is a secular holiday. Which ever day you celebrate it, honouring your mum is a worth while thing and it's good that we have a day to spoil them. I just wish I could get my hands on a Mothering Sunday sentiment instead of just Mother's Day as I'm a bit pedantic.

The first card I'd like to share is a butterfly A5 card using Crafter's Companion Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens and Flight of Fancy stamps.

I'm sorry the photo isn't very clear but you get the general idea - the sentiment says For a Special MUM. Unfortunately you can't really see the sparkle on the butterflies. According to Leanne from Crafter's Companion the prototype sparkle pens were sent back around 20 times before she was satisfied with the amount of sparkle in the pens but personally I would have send them back a few more times because I don't think they are a patch on Wink of Stella and the purple (shows here black for some reason) was especially poor in the shimmer department. In fact I ended up going over it with my clear Wink of Stella just to get some shimmer to it! They don't blend very well on ordinary card stock so I recommend using a good quality water colour card if you want to blend the colours together and work fast as they dry a lot quicker than I was expecting. On the plus side the pens are a bit cheaper than the Wink of Stella and the colours are vibrant and fresh - I used the Glitz and Glamour collection on this card and for three pens I paid £11.04 BUT that is the Gold Member price not the usual RRP.

My second card is a Split Panel card featuring another Crafter's Companion stamp set but this time one of the new Verity Rose stamps - Starlet. I fell in love with these stamps and I've only got one set so far but intend to own all of them at some point. The images are fun, feisty and fabulous and are 1920s in style. The only downside is the stamps are quite small which really suits the split panel card (it's only 41/4" x 51/2") but would be lost on a 8" square card so I wish they'd come out with a larger version of the stamps. I also added one of the Flights of Fancy butterflies to the card as my mum really loves butterflies.

Starlet Verity Rose Split Panel card

Fun, feisty and fabulous - Verity Rose.

The glitter background is some non shedding glitter card from The Works and it is also FABULOUS!!! It's one of the smoothest glitter cards I've ever worked with and a real pleasure to use. I coloured the entire image in using Flex Markers then went over the clothing etc with the same shimmer pens that I used on the first card as I wanted to see how they compared to the usual clear Wink of Stella I normally use over alcohol ink coloured images. I also added a few highlights on her dress and head piece using a Jelly Roll glitter pen and added the flat back pearl as shown. I made a card for my wonderful mum-in-law very similar to this one but forgot to take a photo of it before I gave it to her yesterday.

Crafter's Companion are now on the Hochanda craft channel and have a week (until this coming Thursday) of special offers so do check them out there on on their website www.crafterscompanion.co.uk . I am really looking forward to the Sheena Douglass release called "Day of the Dead" which features sugar skulls and mock zombie wedding couples as well as some beautiful floral images and is launched tomorrow on Hochanda. I love sugar skulls and zombies so I can't wait to see the collection.

Passion For Promarkers is having a blog challenge over on their site so I may enter this card even though the colouring is pretty basic.

I hope to have a few more cards to share with you soon. If you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Mother's Day card for my mum-in-law and bonus Pink Version for my mum (made since blog post)

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! As promised I'd like to share my latest project with you, a Mother's Day card for my lovely mum-in-law Denise. I chose matching images for my Mother's Day cards this year Moreheads' "Girl" stamp for my mum and the Moreheads' "Boy" stamp for Chris's mum, so that I could make them look a bit like us as children by using different hair colours and skin tones. If I had any artistic ability I'd have hand drawn some glasses on the "Boy" stamp but I'm not going to risk ruining the card by adding them on. Actually I'm surprised Crafter's Companion didn't think to add them to the image in the first place - the stamp reminds me a bit of 'The Milky Bar Kid'.

Crafter's Companion Morehead stamp "Boy" card

I stamped the "Boy" image onto a sheet of Image Digicolor A4 card 300gsm using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and coloured in using ProMarkers. My lovely hubby had ginger hair as a child and very pale skin so I coloured the image in accordingly. Once it was coloured in I cut it down to the required size and embossed some blue satin board (from The Works) using The Glitter Girls "The Big Screen" embossing board and ball tool. I cut the embossed shape out then embossed the various layers which I also cut out. I stuck them together as shown using Dovecraft clear 3D pearl effects (it's for making pearl embellishments but is a fantastic glue!) I used a ticket corner punch on the corners of the image and added it to the central panel of the card blank. I don't tend to use peel offs these days but thought the silver Happy Mother's Day went well with the blue satin card so added it to the top of the central panel. I punched out six flowers using Tonic's build a flower punches (each flower is made up of two petal shapes which you layer and weave together to make a new flower, I have 4 punches and the flower combinations are endless!) and added a gem to the centres then I I added them to the side panels as shown using pop glue dots. I've bend the side panels slightly forward so the card stands without needing a separate plate stand.

Close up of "Boy" topper

Jewelled flowers on side panels

The Wilky Bar Kid (Chris's suggestion!)

I really enjoyed making this card though it was quite frustrating when things went wrong while embossing the card - I had to cut down one A4 sheet of card to just the white panels on the front because the washi tape I used to stick the paper to the board ripped the surface as I peeled it off. This card has made me realise how much I love my Glitter Girls Embossing Boards and I've moved them to a more accessible area in my crudy (craft/study room) so I may be making a few more in the future. I'll have an Anniversary card to share with you tomorrow but until then - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Hi everyone just a quick update, I liked making this card so much that I've made a pink "Girl" version - photos below.