Craft Barn challenge: hearts

The latest challenge from The Craft Barn is 'hearts', as long as they are not red!  Around this time of year I start to think about the most difficult card of the year - a birthday card for my husband.  Well, this gave me the idea to combine the theme of hearts with a birthday card for someone special.  

  I decided to keep it simple, using a pretty paper from KaiserCraft's Teddy Bear's Picnic range.  It's a delicate blue/green paper with spots and definitely no red in sight.  I chose to use it with a contrasting colour of cream.  First of all I passed the background paper through Sue Wilson's Cascading Heart's embossing folder, inking the edges slightly before matting onto the background.  I used Spellbinders Sentiments 3 for the wording, and two Heartfelt Creations hearts which I cut and interlinked.  This die set (Timeless Amour) was my first introduction to Heartfelt Creations several years ago, and I return to it again and again.

I hope you like my entry for the challenge - just don't mention this post to my husband!  LOL!  There's a week or so before his big day.

Thanks for stopping by.

Anne

Monochrome magic

Two of my favourite blogs have featured monochrome cards recently (John Next Door and Particraft Sue Wilson's blog).  I really like monochrome as an option for cards for men - it lends itself to patterns and the starkness of using just two colours is very striking.

My card today is a twist on a card which featured on Sue Wilson's blog here.

I had to make a card for someone who is male and 60, but who I didn't really know very well. I wanted it to be as clean and simple as possible and I'd admired Sue's use of positive and negative on her card.  I chose a bright white hammered card and a some gun metal pearlised card.  After cutting the pieces out, I butted the die cuts together and combined them with a very simple sentiment from Lawn Fawn - one of my favourites currently.  Finally, to add some interest, I added a label with the number 60 on it and some white twine (no ribbons, glitter or bows in sight!).

The die is intertwining from Sue Wilson - the fallaway items are in general quite large, and my next project will be to cut it out in different colours and insert the pieces in the gaps, just like a mosaic.  For some unknown reason, I really enjoy piecing the die cuts back together!  And, unlike a jigsaw puzzle, if I lose a piece, I can always make another one!  

Have a happy Saturday!

Thanks for stopping by.

Anne

Happy birthday!

Today's card is to wish my lovely sister-in-law Sharon a very happy birthday.  I enjoy mixing gilding flakes with pan pastels and this is what I did with the Indigo Blu stamp, using Flitter glue to grab the flakes and the pastels.  I framed the focal point with a Memory Box honeycomb die and positioned this over some pretty Heartfelt Creations paper.

I photographed it beside a model motorbike as she is a keen biker.

Hope you have a lovely day Sharon!

Thanks for stopping by.

Anne

Friend

Friend

The next letter to be chosen for the Craft Barn's alpha/dictionary challenge is the letter 'f', with the added challenge of incorporating a heart in the artwork.  I have an abundance of hearts in my die collection, and so I thought I would major on hearts, linking them to my chosen word, 'Friend'.  With Valentine's Day just around the corner, it was time to dust them down.

The heart dies are from Spellbinders and the pretty pink paper is from Heartfelt Creations.

I hope you like it.  Thanks for dropping by.

Anne

Keeping lists

Last year I joined a monthly class to make mini-albums.  Each class we arrived to see a beautiful sample, convinced we'd never be able to come close, but by the end of the day, we took away a small masterpiece and the confidence to branch out alone.

Today I'm showing an adaption of a class project - a note pad with an envelope for receipts - which I made for a best friend who is organised enough to write lists and loves the birds in her garden.  

The paper is from the gorgeous pad Bloom Beautiful by Shell Rummel for Craft Consortium.    If you like birds and roses, this is the pad for you.  I worked hard to find the perfect position of birds for the from cover, and used some feathery patterns to contrast on the inside.

The front with matching elastic fastener

It opens to an envelope, small pad and pen

The envelope has a magnet closure

And here's the back

I hugely enjoy making mini-albums and the key skill I have improved is cutting squarely to accurate sizes.  My cards are a lot less wonky as a result. LOL!

Thanks for stopping by.

Anne

Happy birthday!

I went to a lovely 70th birthday party last night which had the theme of 50s and 60s.  Oh, what to wear?  I could only think of Twiggy and mini skirts. Then I remembered the films set in that era - Grease, Blues Brothers and I was off!  Sandy from Grease was my inspiration.  No, not the leather catsuit!  The clean cut girl with a hair band.  I added a circle skirt, a petticoat and a pair of white socks with sneakers.  (Thank you Lindy Bop for making sure my skirt arrived on time!)  The outfits at the party were stunning without exception! Well, perhaps there was one exception - one family member 'misread' the invitation and organised 70s Abba outfits for himself and his wife!  Actually their outfits were pretty cool too! LOL!

The card I made for the birthday girl uses Heartfelt Creations paper and dies.  I love making 3D flowers and they appear on many of my cards.  My favourite background die at the moment is the Decorative Oval die, and the pattern is reflected in the Cascading Fuchsias paper.  I teamed them up with the Delicate Asters flowers, which I cut out of the same paper.  Finally. I stamped 'Congratulations' on a Banner die cut from Sue Wilson.  The stamp is from Lawn Fawn - I just love the friendly loopy style and am using it a lot at the moment.  

Happy birthday Irene!  And thanks for a lovely party!!

Anne

A Christmas card in February!!!

It's a first for me!

I've just made my first Christmas card for 2016.  No, I'm not being super efficient.  I simply had an idea for a card to enter the Craft Barn's weekly challenge - Triplets.  I remembered that I had some wacky stockings which would form the focal point of my card.  

What do you think?

It was a really fast card to make:

• I cut out the stockings using Spellbinders' Stocking Trio.  I stencilled through the dies with a chalky white ink.
• The garland is from Spellbinders' Victorian Tassels, decorated with the fallaway from Crystalline Border by Memory Box.
• The sentiment is from Heartfelt Creations.
• And the finishing touch was some twinkly stickles!

Thank you for visiting.

Anne

And another one!

Welcome to my second blog.  Today I'm posting my entry to The Craft Barn's latest alpha/dictionary challenge.  It's the letter 'Q'.  I've chosen the last 'Q' word in my dictionary: qwerty.  It seemed appropriate to me as I am a communication consultant and spent a good proportion of my early career as a copywriter.  

Language is very important to me - thinking about the correct message to deliver, and working to express it in an easy to understand way.  My tag is reminiscent of an old fashioned typewriter and features a portion of a keyboard.  I hope you like it!

Thanks for visiting.

Anne