Card Making

Hi everyone,

(Giveaway for the Scrapbook magazine still open below)

Hope you are having a great weekend!

One of my friends from Baby Days group is an Army wife and they recently were waiting to hear where their next posting would be. They had their fingers crossed for Germany, but they could have been sent a number of places. They found out, and guess what – their wish came true!

So i decided that a congratulations card was in order, and definitely one with a German theme, and this was the end result.

I used an American Crafts black card base, and ran it through the cuttlebug using the swiss dots embossing folder. To make the panel I stamped the Hero Arts friend definition ( love this stamp) with some Fired Brick distress ink and then used a template to cut out the label shape. For the flag I simply rubbed three colours of distress inn (black soot, fired brick & mustard seed) onto white card stock then used a square punch to create squares. I over lapped the squares using sticky tape and trimmed off the excess so that the flag was a rectangle. For the flag pole, i dipped the end of a cocktail stick into some tacky glue and poked it into a bead, and set it aside to dry for an hour. Then it didn’t take long to assemble everything together.

{Funny thing is that i was convinced that the german flag had vertical stripes so originally made a flag like that. Once it was done something seemed off, it didnt feel right, so i had to google the German flag – good thing i did otherwise i would have had it completely wrong! haha!}

The congratulations greeting is also a Hero Arts favourite of mine, and I made the arrow head cuts using the corner of the square punch.

Thanks for stopping by.

x

When we were packing for our trip to the in-laws I packed an emergency craft kit. Yes, I know, perhaps that isn’t quite the correct term, after all a number of my friends on facebook questioned what kind of situation would call for crafting so much that it would be classed as an emergency!

Truth is, this is not the first time i have packed the ’emergency craft kit’. The first time was when we were relocating from Cambridge to Guildford. We were technically homeless for a few weeks as our flat rental fell through at the last minute and thankfully we had great friends who let us stay with them. Even though the two of us were crammed into a single bedroom, i still managed to justify a wheeled craft tote full of craft goodies.  Craig couldn’t go two-three days without a coffee i’m sure, and if i go that long without creating something, my withdrawal symptoms kick in too. It’s not pretty! Crafting is my therapy (and my weakness!) LOL

I am much more frugal when it comes to packing my ECK now, which is a good thing considering you have to pay for extra weight on flights these days.

SO i thought i would share my ECK with you guys, so you can see what i brought with me. Perhaps you will think that it’s still too much, others may wonder how i manage with so little.  Blessed with a custom-made craft room at home, jam packed with more goodies than most craft shops, there was definitely times on holiday where i thought oh, i wish i had that stamp with me, or i know exactly what i want to put here but i didn’t bring it with me, but not having everything to hand was actually a little liberating. Too much product can lead to brain overload, and as a result – reduced motivation and inspiration.

I didn’t want that. I was on holiday, visiting family. It was probably one of the only times when i could sit and craft for an hour during the day whilst Granny and Granda look after Piper. I wanted quick, fun, inspiring crafting.

So here it is.

I packed everything in a Really Useful Box. And guess what, it was REALLY useful!! Its big enough to hold the 12×12 paper, even those with the extra bit on the edge for the barcode. It was flat enough to pack in my suitcase and wasn’t bulky. BONUS!

Here are my staple tools. I couldn’t craft without these.
Small Cutting mat
Craft knife
Permanent glue runner
Repo glue runner
Double Sided Tape
Foam squares
Scissors
Black pen
White gel pen
Pencil
Glue pen
Metal Ruler

Next up – little zip lock bags full of buttons, and ribbons (because i’m addicted!). I took a pinch of buttons from each jar (i have a jar for each colour), and the ribbons are mostly cut offs from previous projects. I think i cut a few lengths of standard colours just to make sure i had a variety in the pouch. Whatever i don’t use i will keep in these pouches for the next time i need an ECK.

A bag of scraps. This bag has got some die cuts, punchees and little scraps from previous projects. Once again i tried to pick a variety of colours, but wasn’t too fussy about what shape they were – as long as they fit into the bag.

A few weeks back i shared a post on how i printed my iPhone photos. All the photos i hadn’t yet scrapped came with me in my ECK. They are small enough to fit neatly into a small zip lock bag, and it meant i had a good selection of photos to choose from. I didn’t bring any other photos with me. This was plenty, and i didn’t care that they were all iPhone photos.

Papers. The larger pieces of paper are all pieces of 12×12 paper that have been left over from recent projects. I had made some layouts recently, and when i filed away the papers, all the coordinating pages were lying together, so i grabbed these. This meant it was easier to make cohesive pages or cards from the ECK as many of the pages all coordinated already. Can you also see the little 6×6 paper pad at the front? This was a relatively new purchase for me so it came too. Small, not bulky, and because it’s new it was very inspiring. I recommend putting a little bit of new product into your ECK so you feel excited about it. Oh, and you can see some twine on there too – forgot to photo that previously. Loving my twine just now, so couldn’t forget that!

SO thats the ECK. What do you think?

I didn’t get to make lots and lots of stuff on holiday, but i did get to make a start on two layouts and made a few cards.

Here’s the card i made.

The layouts still need a few finishing touches. I’ll be sharing them soon. Thanks for stopping by, and i hope you find this useful if you ever need to pack your own Emergency Craft Kit!