A Touch of Autumn!

For our September Class, I chose some autumnal colours and the lovely new stamp set, Painted Harvest.

For this card we used the tri-layered stamping technique where the 3 Very Vanilla layers are placed on top of each other then the images are stamped ensuring that they go over the borders then the layers disassembled and Chocolate Chip matts are added back in between each layer.  this is the wonderful Painted Harvest stamp set which is a two-stamp image where the background of the sunflower was stamped in Crushed Curry and the detailed top layer stamped in Pumpkin Pie.  The leavers were stamped using Garden Green and cut out with the new Leaf punch.  The greeting was taken from  Flourishing Phrases.

Our second autumnal card was made using the baby-wipe technique where drops of Pumpkin Pie, Cherry Cobbler and Crushed Curry were dropped onto a baby-wipe and left to blend before using this as an ink pad to create the leaves.  This card also used a similar technique to the first where we stamped the tree trunk (stamp set Sheltering Tree  ) across two layers then removed the top Whisper White layer and stamped the leaves before re-assembling with a layer of Early Espresso in between.  The greeting was taken from Happy Birthday Gorgeous.

Our 3D project this month is a new style box I found on Pinterest called the self closing box.  It is very simple to make using the Score-board and for this we used the other leaf stamp from the Painted Harvest stamp set along with the acorn to make our own DSP.  The colours used were Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, and Garden Green. The greeting was taken from the Blooms & Wishes stamp set , punched out using the new Pretty Label punch and clipped to the box with some Burlap Ribbon and a Gold Library Clip. 

July's Class Creations

Hello.  This month we sort of had a theme of cards with hidden messages! The first card was designed as a New Home card using the At Home With You and matching framelits.  Thankfully the framelits reduced the amount of 'fussy-cutting' required ont his project. We also used the Brick Wall Textured Embossing Folder.  The main colours used were Bermuda Bay and Crumb Cake (using aqaupainters), Smoky slate, Whisper White, Old olive, Rose Red and Curshed Curry.  The Timeless Texture stamp was used to create the texture look of the 'ground'.

Our second card was a 'slider card' to reveal a hidden greeting! I had been asked to create a 'congratulations on passing your driving test card' but didn't have anything suitable so borrowed a retired set, Beautiful Ride, from a friend to create this fun card.  The background was created using Playful Backgrounds stamp set and heat embossed using Silver Embossing powder.  The 'congratulations' was taken from the Flourishing Phrases stamp set and 'you've passed' was computer created.

Our final card was just back to basic stamping using the stamping off technique to get reduced shading of the main colours.  The set we used was Garden In Bloom which is a lovely set that I don't use often enough.  The greeting was taken from the Flourishing Phrases stamp set and cut out using the Lots of Labels Framelits. The main colours used were Melon Mambo, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie and Tempting Turquiose.  The butterfly was made using the Bold Butterfly Framelits and adorned with Basic Rhinestones.

May's Class Projects

Good Morning. Here are this months projects, yes, I think I am still in the right month! I've just waved my husband off along with 10 other friends on their mopeds off for a weekend riding to Ludlow.  I hope they get there in one piece and in the dry!  What a mad lot!

Anyway, back to card making.  This month we made a card suitable for a male and could also be used for Fathers Day (18th June).  We used a lovely set that came out in the Spring/Summer catalogue and has been carried over to the new annual catalogue, Lift Me Up.  We also used the background stamp set Timeless Textures.  To give the impression of 'distance' we used the stamping off technique.  The main colours we used were Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler, Night of Navy and Very Vanilla.  The twine is Cherry Cobbler Bakers twine.

I had had a couple of requests to make a new baby card and what could be more perfect than this set, Moon Baby which also came out in the Spring/Summer catalogue and has been carried over to the new annual catalogue.  To give a neutral feel we used Bermuda Bay, Daffodil Delight and So Saffron colours.  We used the Daffodil Watercolour pencil for the moon to enable the shading effect.  The 'congratulations' came from Flourishing Phases stamp set.  The moon image was stamped in Momento ink. 

Our 3rd project this month was to make a few gifts tags - you can never have too many!! We used the stamp sets Balloon Celebration and Endless Birthday Wishes (retiring).  The colours used were Crushed Curry, Melon Mambo and Pool Party with StazOn ink. We used the Balloon Bouquet and Scalloped Tag Topper punches.

Watch this space for the new Annual Catalogue which will be released on 1st June!!

Final Class of the Year!

Well here we are at the end of 2016 and I am still not keeping up with this blog! I have had a very busy December with lots of craft fairs, commissions and classes.  My New Years Resolution should be to be more organsied!

So for the last class we made a final Christmas card that uses the 'Peek-a-boo' technique. This is where on opening the card, the back sort of slides to reveal a hidden message. It would be better to show on a video but that is not something I have yet managed to master on here! We used projects from the Autumn/Winter catalogue which also reitred at the end of the year. The stamp set used was Stitched with Cheer with its coordinating DSP Warmth and Cheer.  The colours used were Garden Green, Cheery Cobbler, Crumb Cake and Early Espresso.

Photo showing card in 'closed' position.

 Photo showing card in 'open' position.

For our second card, I returned to using the stamp set, Sprinkles of Life and its coordinating punch set, produced two years ago by Stampin Up to raise funds for Ronald McDonald House Charites whereby £2 from the sale of the stamp set goes to the charity.  We also used the current 2016-2018 In-Colors.  The greeting was taken from the Flourishing Phrases stamp set from the main catalogue. (Sorry for the slight marking on the front of the card, I forgot to take the photo before the class and it seemed to have had a close encounter with some ink at the class!)

 For our 3D project, we made a desk calendar/Post-it Note holder and a decorated pen. For this project I used up retired DSP and let my customers chose which one they wanted to use.  The numbers were taken from the Number of Years stamp set.