Wonky Tonk Girl birthday card

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend and if you're in the UK (or elsewhere) have managed to take advantage of the beautiful weather. If it's too hot for you, just think it's only four weeks or less until the summer holidays so it's BOUND to be grotty weather for then 😉

I thoroughly enjoyed doing last week's challenge over at Passion for Promarkers so I've decided to follow along this week too - it's a sketch challenge and as it's my husband's cousin's birthday tomorrow I decided to use the sketch to make a 16th birthday card.

Probably for the first time ever, I actually chose the patterned paper before I coloured in the image. I used almost a full sheet of 8" x 8" Pick 'n' Mix premium paper by First Edition - there are some gorgeous papers in the pack including two foiled designs, two glitter effect designs and four spot UV designs, the rest of the papers are double sided like the one I used and there are three of each design.  After I had chosen the patterns I wanted and cut them to the right size, I glued them to a 5" x 7" card blank in the positions shown on the sketch. I got a scrap of card out of my stash and stamped a border on it from the 'Georgina' Wonky Tonk stamp set from Which Craft? I coloured over the image completely in Pale Pink then I went over the hearts and the flowers with either Cocktail Pink or Rose Pink Promarkers. I stamped the main image in the stamp set and coloured her in using Blush and Vanilla for her skintones, Violet for her eyes and Pale Pink, Cocktail Pink and Rose Pink for her hair. I edged around the panel using the darkest shade and added it to the card front.

Below is a souped up version of the card which I've sent off, I added a couple of layers of Clear Wink Of Stella to her hair and diecut a 16 out of speciality card which I added to the bottom right of the card- it's actually a coppery colour but I went over it using an Antique Pink Flexmarker so it has pink tones to it which change as you tilt the card. For this souped up version, I also added a stamped sentiment inside which reads "Wishing you a FANTASTIC BIRTHDAY" it's a Sentimentals stamp by Crafters Companion, I stamped it in VersaMark Onyx Black ink and sprinkled it with a holographic embossing powder which turns the letters into rainbow colours after it's been heat set and if you tilt the card into the light. I also stamped the Georgina character inside using Memento Tuxedo Black ink which I left uncoloured.

I really enjoyed this week's challenge over at Passion for Promarkers please click the link for more details http://promarkerchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/week-400sketch.html .

As always 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 xxxx

A U-Fold Box card for Father's Day

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you have all had a wonderful weekend, we've been enjoying some beautiful weather here in the UK which is lovely apart from my tiny crudy is very stuffy and almost too hot to craft in! However, I managed to spend a couple of hours in there last night to make a special Father's Day card for my dad-in-law. I saw this new to me card fold on YouTube about a month ago and originally I was planning on making one for  a baby card with the flap part becoming a changing table but ended up making a double Z fold card instead. I still wanted to make one of these cards though and what better occasion than Father's Day. Men's cards are quite difficult to make but I've noticed that kinetic cards are popular with men  especially so I try to make them for my dad-in-law time permitting. My dad-in-law is a very keen gardener and loves his shed so I thought I'd make him a potting shed card. I have a set of cacti dies by Spellbinders called Succulent Garden which has a plant pot die included so I combined this die set with some paper from the Mr Mister papers and diecut collection to make the following card.

The card folds flat for posting

The top middle panel is should be pushed down when the card is opened to form the work bench

The card opens to form a U and the front panel rests on a card bracket

Closer view of the work bench area

Close up of the succulents

I'll have to admit that this is quite a tricky card to make - I followed the instructions of the YouTube video and a blog post carefully but my first attempt just wouldn't fold flat and even my second attempt stubbornly refused to stay flat enough to put in an envelope so I ended up tweaking the measurements a bit.  Here is a link to the original video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI1y-Es7rN8&t=75s - I think I went wrong because I used the measurements provided on her blog post which had one of the pieces as being 5cm by 19.5cm (on the video she gives both metric and imperial so I went on her blog just to jot down the measurements because it was getting a bit confusing) whereas if you watch the video it should be 5cm by 21cm and believe me that 1.5cm makes a huge difference! Before I checked both her blog and video for the measurements I just left my strip longer than I needed and cut the excess off. Anyway it was third time lucky and the card turned out fine. As there is already someone else's YouTube and Blog post already out there I won't bother adding a tutorial on here (to be honest it's so hot I just want to finish this post as quickly as possible so I can lay somewhere cool), if you click on the link it will take you to Ink Responsibly's video and there is a link to her blog in the description - it doesn't take you directly there so you'll have to scroll down a couple of pages - not a hardship though as she has some cute puppy photos on her blog posts 😍

I nearly forgot to say - the flower pots were die cut out of kraft card and edged with some walnut stain distress ink, for most of them I die cut them twice and cut off the top part to layer on the rim  to give it more dimension but I ran out of kraft card so I couldn't do them all. The succulents were die cut out of white card stock and coloured in using Flexmarkers, I also used one of the brown shades (think it may have been rosewood) to go over the edges of the card as the white card base showed through especially so when the work bench is folded down, I think I'd use kraft card stock for card base if I make another one. The sentiment was one out of the pack of Mr Mister papers and die cuts.

I'd like to enter this card for the Blog Challenge over at Passion For Promarkers  http://promarkerchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/week-399add-sentiment.html - the challenge this week is Add a Sentiment and I coloured in the succulents with Grass, Bright Green, Herb Green and Forest Green (I think!) I also used Rosewood Flexmarker.

I hope you like my latest make, it was a lot of fun to make and it's great to have such a dimensional card that folds flat enough to post - it fits in a 4 1/2" x 8" envelope, I made my own using my WRMK envelope punch board. As always 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

Blog Challenge Cards and a new challenge!

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and looking forward to the weekend. I was planning on adding this blog post on the 14th but after the tragic events in London, it didn't seem appropriate so I decided to leave it for a few days out of respect for those affected by the fire. (The victims and their families are in my thoughts and prayers.)

A few weeks ago I announced a challenge that my lovely crafty friend Michele and I were going to take on and I invited my readers to join in if they wanted. Sadly nobody expressed an interest but perhaps you are all shy and just followed along in your own crafty nooks *winks*. The challenge was to use the free gift with Quick Cards Made Easy magazine which consisted of nautical themed papers, cards and embellishments, we could add a few extra items and use basics from our craft stash but the kit itself needed to remain the main focus of the card. Here is the gorgeous card that Michele made.

Best Fishes Side panel stepper card by Michele Coffey

Isn't it fantastic? I love the way she combined all the different elements together and the addition of the Card Candi makes it pop - she's certainly inspired me to make some more cards with the kit.

Here's my card.

My card for the blog challenge

I kept my design fairly simple and used only three items from the kit. The first thing I used was one of the A6 sized card blanks which I turned into a patterned card piece by cutting off the blank card back. I knew I wanted to wrap stiff baker's twine around the front of the card but I didn't want it to show inside the card. Before I wrapped the twine, I distressed the edges of the card using a pair of scissors so it looks weathered and adds some texture, the card did rip a little but that just added to the worn look. I wrapped the twine around the card and tied a knot near the top, I threaded one of the embellishments (an anchor) onto the twine and finished it in a bow. I added the 'You are my anchor' sentiment to the panel using double sided foam tape and then added the whole panel to a card blank using more double sided foam tape. I've made this card for my lovely husband Chris just to let him know how much I appreciate him.

A close up of the tied anchor embellishment

I love the way we've come up with two very different cards using the same supplies.

Michele and I are planning on challenging each other twice a month, on or around the 1st and 15th of each month. One of challenges will be to use a freebie from one of the magazines we both get and after this month the second challenge will be a mystery challenge (but not a magazine freebie challenge) - this could be a stash raider challenge, a sketch challenge (maybe one from a magazine as I'm not really very good at coming up with designs myself because I don't really have the tech know how at present), a take one stamp set and make 3/5 cards challenge or a mystery package challenge where we send each other bits and bobs and challenge the other person to make something AMAZING out of it. I'm even considering a sort of crafty bush tucker challenge where we each have to make a card using a technique we usually avoid - for me that would be card kits (ironic considering that's what this challenge was lol) CD crafting (not much fun with my printer!) or Decoupage (hate trying to line everything up!) I know Michele doesn't like to stamp so that may end up being her first crafty bush tucker challenge 😁 We would be delighted if you joined in, some challenges will be easier to join in than others but you are welcome to get stuck in to any of them. If it's the mystery package challenge then obviously I'll need contact details and I'd have to keep the numbers down to a reasonable level just because of postage costs (I don't have a lot of  money left once I've fed the craft monkey that 'forces' me to spend any spare cash on craft supplies - bad monkey!) or I'll assign swap partners so everyone has a different mystery package.

I've talked a lot about future challenges so I think it's time to announce this month's second challenge - as you may have guessed unlike future months we are having two magazine freebie challenges this month and the second one features the lovely Family Ties dies and stamps free with issue 164 of Simply Cards & Papercrafts which consists of a set of four dies (3 nesting Russian dolls dies and a tiny flower die) and a whole family of Russian Doll stamps which even includes a baby and a cat (no dog though) there are also two sheets of downloadable images for those of you who hate colouring *shock face*. There are some beautiful examples in the magazine and online if you are stuck for inspiration. This has got to be one of my favourite free gifts of the year because the dies and images are a really good size - not huge - but they certainly won't get lost on an A6 card or even a bit bigger. The challenge is to use the free gift, basic craft supplies and up to three additional items to make a card any size, shape and design as long as the Family Ties set is the main focus of the card - colouring mediums count as basic supplies as does a printer to print out the downloadable sheets but if you use another die set that counts as an additional item (out of three) as would a paperstack but you can use as many elements out of that paperstack/die set and it'll only count as one item. However if you then use another die set or paper pack that counts as another item (so you'll have used two out of your three extra items). We're not going to be super strict as this is just for fun (no prizes apart from the satisfaction of creating something you might not have) so if you use four we won't mind - however more than five additional items isn't really playing fair unless you really really needed to use them of course. 😏

I hope you'll all rise to the challenge and take part - we'd really love it if you do. Please leave a comment in the usual places if you have any questions or comments and of course if you're planning to join in. I don't know how to add a link gadget so if you want your cards to be featured in the Blog Challenge Card post (should be up on the 1st of July) then please email me a couple of photos with your details and a few brief details on your make so I can add them to the blog post - please email them to me by the 30th June, my email is craftynook@outlook.com.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog challenge, I'll have some new cards to share either over the weekend or on Monday - I've still got my Father's Day card to make - gulp! Until next time - keep crafting!

Crafty love and hugs,

Sarah xxxx

A Few Labours of Love part two

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! As I mentioned yesterday there were two very important events in May, the first was my sister's wedding and the second was the arrival of my beautiful new God-Daughter on the 17th of May. I don't want to share any personal details without her parents consent but I'm sure they won't mind me sharing the card I made to celebrate her birth. Like my sister, they've had to wait a few weeks to receive the card but thanks to a lovely email from them I know they've got it and love it which pleases me no end. *huge grin*

This card was a huge undertaking but very fun to make. I'd seen a slightly similar card on Pinterest and loved the idea of having the second Z of a double Z-Fold card at the top instead of at the bottom and I loved the idea of having a pop up cot element but didn't own  a cot die. However when I looked at the cot I realised I could make something similar using tag dies and a fence die. The heart die cut at the very top of the card was made using a Crafter's Companion die but all the rest of the diecut images and elements were made using dies purchased from eBay. The lacy border of the top Z was made using a Tonic Studio punch, the footprints and sentiment stamps were a WRMK mini stamp set and the chest of drawers were stamped then coloured and fussy cut out - I can't recall what brand the stamp set was but if I remember I'll add it to the post at a later date. The metal knobs on the chest of drawers are actually nail art pieces from eBay - I've discovered that a lot of craft supplies can be sourced cheaper if they are classed as 'beauty products' such as pear shaped sponges, mini glue brushes (made for adding false eyelashes but brilliant for adding tiny dabs of glue to thin die cuts) and dotting tools which can be used for adding paint details to projects or even better to use as embossing ball tools!The wall paper is taken from the 'Sweet Paris' 8" x 8" paperstack by Dovecraft. The pink strips and hearts were made out of Centura Pearl card stock but everything else was made using plain white card coloured with Flexmarkers. I went over the footprints on the front piece with Dovecraft glitter glue. The card does actually fold down to fit into a 5 1/2" x 7" envelope but I forgot to take a photo of it folded flat.

I'd like to enter this card into the Kinetic Card challenge over at Passion for Promarkers blog (Double Z-Fold card with pop up cot and baby mobile elements - coloured with Flexmarkers)  http://promarkerchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/week-397make-kinetic-card.html

I hope you like my latest make, as always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

p.s. here's a link to the card that inspired me on Pinterest via Google Images  https://goo.gl/images/8lmQ05

A Few Labours of Love (and as it's turned out a bit of a rant!) part one

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you're all having a brilliant week so far. It's beginning to brighten up here on the Yorkshire coast after a few days of rain and gloomy weather which is lovely for the kids celebrating half term and even better for the parents as it means they can spend the days on the beaches instead of in the amusement arcades.

There has been two significant events happen in my life during May - the first was on the 16th when my sister married her long time partner Simon. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend because I came down with a severe tummy bug (which was extra contagious because even though most if not all of his symptoms had vanished a week after he started with them, my husband still manage to infect my mum when they met up!) I was worried about the journey (an hour on a bus with no loos!!!) and about infecting everyone at the wedding so decided it would be best not to go. As much as it may have upset my sister I'm sure it was the best decision because who wants to be ill on their wedding night or for days afterwards?? Partly down to the bug and other reasons beyond my control (i.e. my hubby refused to go into town and the card needed to go large packet) their card didn't actually get send until Saturday, for which I am sorry. I have no idea if my sister has got her card or not as she's not mentioned it but I wanted to share what I made as I'm rather proud of the card I made for the happy couple.

 I don't think non-crafters truly appreciate what goes into a handcrafted card, even the most simplest of my creations takes a minimum of 40 minutes to make and as the national living wage is around £7.50 per hour that represents £5.00 of my time - when was the last time you paid £5.00 for a card? That doesn't even take into account the time it takes to come up with the idea or the materials used. The card I'm going to share with you is far from being a 'simple' make and took nearly five hours to make (which in monetary terms is around £37). I think the point I'm trying to make for all you non crafters who might be reading this blog is that a handcrafted card (and I call it handcrafted not homemade for a reason!) isn't just a piece of card, it's a gift of the crafter's time and should be appreciated as such. So if cards aren't to your taste or arrive a bit late or even very late, take into consideration the fact that the sender is human not a card making machine and remember that that human had to design the card, make the card and send the card - and may have personal or health difficulties that you are unaware of.  Anyway nuff said lol *dusts off soapbox and puts it away until next time!* here's the card for my sister and her new husband.

Bookatrix Easel Card

Tattered Lace Butterfly swirl diecut twice to make layered embellishment

Layered Sentiment with cupped bejewelled purple flowers 

Memory Box Heart Stems combined with diecut butterflies 

Card opened using the easel with entwined wedding band/engagement ring stopper

Layered stitched oval sentiment with cupped bejewelled flowers

Entwined wedding band/engagement ring diecut 8 times to make it 3D

Stitched Oval sentiment with bejewelled cupped flowers

A closer look at the opened Bookatrix Easel card

The purple heart strips were die cut three times and added to the edge to keep the card shut when not opened

Layered square sentiment panel on back of  card decorated with paper dots

Blank layered square panel for personal message

The back of the card

I'm sorry there are so many photos but when you've spent 5 hours making a card it's important to show all the details that take so much time to make (the diecutting and layering etc). This isn't perfect - but then if you want perfection I suggest you go to a shop and buy a mass produced card - but it is one of the most intricate and beautiful Bookatrix cards I've ever made (I'm never sure how to decorate them once they're made!) I don't have very much lilac card in my stash so compromised by using lilac script paper on the front layer of the book and dark purple Centura Pearl cardstock for all the other purple elements. I'm not going to go into much more detail as this post is so long that I'm going to have to share the second card another time plus I'm seriously considering entering a similar card for one of the cardmaking of the year comps which should should be starting soon and I can give the details on how to make it when I've made and sent them off. I've tried to give details of some of the supplies used in the photo captions if that helps in the meantime.

Part two of this blog post will be added tomorrow - my fingers are getting tired from all the typing lol.  As always if you have any questions then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

A New Challenge and a few cards to share.

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and enjoying your weekend. We haven't had the forecast thunderstorms though it has gone very overcast, it did the same yesterday but no rain to relieve the pressure. Michele and I have decided on our next challenge and it's a good one to do yourself if you have the latest issue of Quick Cards Made Easy magazine. The free covermount gift this month is a Nautical card making kit which contains die cut pieces, patterned papers and four printed card blanks. We have challenged each other to make a card that's not featured in the magazine (so no CASE cards) using the kit and basic cardmaking supplies. In addition we can use twine or ribbon, gems (in all their forms so pearls and enamel dots are ok too), Card Candi, brads and embossed card but like the first challenge the kit items must be the main event as it were. It would be brilliant if some of you joined in too - I don't have the expertise to link your cards to the blog directly but if you decide to join in then either leave a link to your blog in the comments section and I'll link it in a blog post when the challenge is over or email me a photo (like Michele did in the first challenge) with a few details about yourself and what you used to make the card and I can add them to the completed challenge blog post. We've decided the deadline for the challenge should be the middle of June so that we can challenge each other again for the last two weeks so please try and get your entries in by the 15th of June 2017. If you don't have the magazine feel free to share your cards anyway if they are nautical themed (I don't know about you but I have a lot of seaside and ocean themed stuff in my stash) just let me know what you've used. Please don't be shy, I love to see what people make and sharing is caring (unless it's germs!)  😍

I've made a few cards recently but haven't had chance to share them on my blog so I thought I'd just do a gallery style blog post (though without the fancy graphics or music lol) for the rest of this piece.

I've kept the photos smaller than usual just because there are so many of them and a lot of them are the same card but taken from a different angle. I hope you like my card share, if you want to know how a particular card has been made then please leave a comment in the usual places and I'll either answer your question in the comments section or I'll add a new blog post. On Wednesday I'll be sharing a Wedding Card and a New Baby Card so please look out for that and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah

Unused Die Challenge - my card

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a good week and have lots of crafty plans for the weekend. It's a bank holiday weekend in the UK so we are expecting thunderstorms here on the Yorkshire coast - lol I know the British talk about the weather a lot but that's probably because it's so changeable. We've had a mini heatwave the past week and as long as they aren't as severe as it's been predicted, I'm quite looking forward to a thunderstorm to clear the air a bit and make it a tad cooler. There's a possibility we might be having guests at short notice at some point so I'm having to do my least favourite activity this weekend - cleaning! Not sure why I bother true be told because it never stays that way and I spend more time then I'd care to think about re-cleaning things I've just done - my husband blames the cat so much that I'm thinking about entering him on Britain's Got Talent as Jinx obviously has amazing human like abilities that need to be exploited on TV lol.

As you know from the last post my friend Michele and I challenged each other to use a previously unused die set to make a card. The last post showcased Michele's lovely weather themed card and this time it's my turn to share what I made. Michele chose a die set by Xcut called Bee Keeping (bought because it was a bargain as so many items in my stash are.) It's been lurking in my stash for absolutely ages mainly because I wasn't sure what to do with it. We were allowed basic craft supplies and up to five additional items but the dies had to be the main focus of the card.

I used three of the nine dies in the set, from my basic craft supplies I used white card, a Dovecraft white card blank, an ink blender, scissors, various adhesives and black ink and my five additional items were a typewriter alphabet stamp set, yellow cellophane, frosted thin acetate taken from the packaging from some felt embellishments, a gold Spectrum Noir Shimmer brush pen and distress inks in stormy sky, fossilised amber and a tiny bit of walnut stain. If you've been counting it would look like I went over my allotted five extra items but we'd agreed that colouring mediums would count as one item so if we used three alcohol markers for example it would count as one item but if we added a different medium such as a white gel pen to add highlights then that would count as an additional item. Every now and again I'll spend an hour or so just cutting A4 card stock down to A6 size (so cut the card in half then each half in half so you get 4 pieces of pretty much the same size out of each sheet) so I have a good stock of card the perfect size for making card toppers, for this card I used Sheena's stamping card as it's really good for ink blending and it is 300gsm - it feels thicker than that though. I took one of my pre-cut pieces and ink blended stormy sky ink completely over the card, I wanted it to have a textured look so splattered it with some water and mopped it with kitchen towel, I allowed it to dry then added more ink and water until I was happy with the result. Next I took seven sheets of my pre-cut card and for the first five, I ran them through my die cutting machine with the honeycomb die one at a time. I kept the hexagons to one side to use later. For the remaining two sheets of card, I ran them through the machine together so the die cut out the first layer but just impressed it's design into the bottom piece. I now knew how much of the card to colour with the fossilised amber distress ink. I coloured over the impressed area with the ink and a blending tool and put it to one side to completely dry. I wanted my honeycomb to have lots of depth to it so I stuck four of  die cuts together using wet glue - I found it helpful to weigh the glued pieces down with an acrylic block to stop them from shifting before they were totally dry. I wanted the honeycomb to look full of honey so stuck a sheet of yellow cellophane behind the stacked layer with wet glue, it was quite tricky and the cellophane went a bit crinkly in places as it dried. Once it had I added the remaining two die cuts behind it and cut off the excess cellophane. I coloured the top and the sides (but not the interiors of the combs)with the fossilised amber ink then went over it with a gold Spectrum Noir Shimmer brush pen. Once it was all dry I coloured two of the hexagon shapes with walnut stain distress ink and added them to the back of the honeycomb as I wanted them to look like empty chambers waiting to be filled with honey then I lined the piece up to the impression on the remaining piece of card and glued it into place. Once it was completely dried I trimmed around the honey comb with a pair of scissors. I stamped 'bee happy' onto the hexagon pieces left over from die cutting out the honeycombs and coloured over them using the gold shimmer marker. I die cut the honey dipper four times out of the scraps of card left over from the honeycomb die cutting and stuck three of them together, I replaced the negative part of the dipper onto the fourth die cut and held it in place with some double sided tape, then blended over the dipper with fossilised amber ink, I allowed it to dry then added it to the bottom of my stacked die cut. I went over the top of the dipper with the gold shimmer pen. Next I die cut the bee out of a scrap of frosted thin acetate and then out of a piece of white card. I trimmed the card so only a body and head shape remained and carefully coloured it with fossilised amber and walnut stain ink so it looked like a fuzzy bee's body and I added this over the frosted acetate with wet glue - it took ages to dry. Now that the die cutting was all completed I assembled the card as shown on the photos using a mixture of wet glue, foam squares and double sided tape.

This wasn't the quickest card to make due to all the die-cutting but you could get a similar effect just using one layer of die cuts instead of the stacked version I've made. I think the die set may have a matching stamp set because the bees in particular are hard to use on their own (they look weird just die cut) so I may have to try and find it online. I hope you've enjoyed my challenge card - I thoroughly enjoyed taking part in it and I'm looking forward to our next one. If you'd like to take part (just for fun, no prizes I'm afraid) then please let me know and I'll be announcing our next challenge shortly.

As always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places, please take a few minutes to check out Michele's lovely creation (it's the post preceding this one) and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx