Videos

Beary Happy Holidays Christmas Snow Shaker Card ft. SSS Bear Necessities Stamp

on December 11, 2016

And then it was mid-December! Well, almost! <3
Hello crafty friends, I hope you are all having a fabulous week. I am feeling super proud of myself because I finally have my Christmas cards all written, my Christmas newsletter designed & printed and tucked into each envelope, and yesterday Piper and I posted them all. I love the feeling of being organised… even though it rarely lasts long because the To Do list seems to be perpetual! 🙂

Thanks for stopping by today – I have got a fun shaker card for you guys today featuring this cute bear from the Bear Necessities stamp set from SimonSaysStamp. This little guy totally inspired my card because in the stamp set there is also a stamp for his cute little furry butt! LOL. So I decided to make the front of my card transparent so you can see the bear from the front, and from behind him.

To create the project, I used watercolour cardstock – which is a bit more sturdy than standard cardstock – so I find that shaker cards stand up more easily when the card is a bit thicker. I cut two frames using the Mama Elephant Park Avenue frame die, and then used the Lawn Fawn simple stitched hillside border dies to cut a hilly mound from the inside panels of both frames. I cut them both together, back to back, so when I put them on the card (one on the front and one on the back of the shaker) they would line up perfectly.

I used the same watercolour cardstock to create a back panel for my card. I cut it at 5.5 ” x 4.5′, and then scored the smaller side at 4.25″. This creates a A2 piece of card with a 0.25″ flap. I can then adhere one of the frames to the flap to join the front and back panels together, before sticking some acetate on top.

For the ‘shaky bits’ I am using this cool new Honey Bee Stamps Embellishment calls ‘Ice Chips Glitter’. It almost looks like tiny shards of glass, and in a shaker it looks like glistening snow! The best thing about these Ice Chips is that they are super thin- so I only need one layer of foam tape around my frame. Normally with seed beads and sequins you need two layers so there is enough room for the shaky bits to move around, but these Ice Chips work a treat with one layer – so it makes the card much easier to post!

I use my MISTI tool to align the frame on top with the one underneath (or you can use a score board), and I made sure to use a powder tool on the inside of the acetate and around the foam tape to remove any static or sticky residue.

I then stuck down the snowy mounds on the front and back of the shaker – and these hide the Ice Chips perfectly when the card is standing up, so it is extra fun when you pick up the card and discover it has snow inside! heehee.

On the inside of the card, I wanted to create a sky landscape. First I stuck down a rectangle of matching cardstock (cut using the Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle dies) and to go on top I used a piece of cardstock that was lying on my desk from a previous project . I had inked it up using peacock feathers, wilted violet and chipped sapphire distress ink. I added some faux stitching around the edges using a Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle die, and then moved over the greeting which says ‘Happy Holidays’. This is a sweet greeting from the Lawn Fawn Toboggan Together set. In the set it was one combined image, but I wanted to stack the words one above the other, so I used my scissors to carefully snip the two words apart.

After the greeting was embossed, I added a little snow with a SimonSaysStamp Falling Snow stencil and some embossing paste, making sure that i used washi tape to cover the greeting first, as I didn’t want the snowfall to interfere with the message. I would recommend that you set this aside to dry for about an hour before moving on, but I was impatient, so kept going, but had be mindful so i didn’t smudge the embossing paste!

Now over to the rest of the stamping! I used the bear from the Bear Necessities stamp set from SimonSaysStamp – using both the front and back image of the bear. I used a baby wipe to remove the ink from the bear’s mouth before stamping as I wanted to add a nice smile to him later on. Because I was using copic markers, I used Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Neenah cardstock. I also stamped a cute santa hat (from Lawn Fawn Toboggan Together) and two presents which are from the MyFavoriteThings Beast Friends set. I specifically chose these presents because they are symmetrical, therefore I can place them back to back without gaps showing. I used some simple copic blending to colour in the images, and went back in with my markers to add dots to the bear to give the illusion of fur!

The little bear does have a coordinating die but I unfortunately don’t own it, so I fussy cut the bear with my fiskars scissors, leaving a small white border. Next I added some repositionable adhesive on the back, held the project up to the light and tired really hard to line up the images, sticking them back to back. Then i used my scissors to trim around the bear’s bottom. This meant that when I stuck one bear on top, and the other behind, the cut lines matched up perfectly! I added the cute presents with some glue dots in the same way! Did you notice the hat? I made sure that the top of Mister Bear’s head was over the frame so I could put the hat onto it, as I didn’t have an inverted image for the reverse. I don’t think its very noticeable from the inside because its on the frame. heehee!

To finish the card, I added a little greeting on the inside – once again from the Toboggan together Lawn Fawn set, but I stamped it in Wisteria SSS ink so it coordinates nicely with the inked sky! I also (of course) added some glaze pen to the eyes and nose of the bear, and stamped a little mouth onto him using a stamp in the Mama Elephant page huggers set. I think it makes him look very dapper!

Just as I was finishing up, I noticed that some of my Ice Chips Glitter was ‘leaking’ out from my card – there must have been a hole between my foam tape. So I took some glossy accents and used it to plug the hole along the edge of the card (a bit like caulking around a bathtub! HAHA)

And that is the card done! WOOHOO!

Thank you for joining me today, I hope you enjoyed the card. Please do leave a like on the video or a comment to make me smile! At the moment I am working on an extra special card to share with you guys shortly so I will see you guys then!

Have a crafty day!

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Yeti For Christmas? – One Layer Card ft. MFT ‘Beast Friends’ Stamps & Watercolouring

on December 4, 2016

Hey gang!

Happy December everyone! Finally, I can sing Christmas songs and wear my Christmas jumper without getting the scornful eye from hubby! Haha! YIPPEEE! I love Christmas! Fingers crossed we can get our decorations up today!

And even though I don’t normally make a lot of Christmas cards, I simply couldn’t resist buying this cute Christmas stamp set from MyFavoriteThings, called ‘Beast Friends’, which has the most adorable little yeti monsters ever!! And I love that they can be used for non-Christmas occasions too – multi-use stamps definitely get extra points in my book! <3

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In my last video, I used colouring pencils to create a soft, textured look on a cute stamped owl image, and in todays card I am using a similar technique with watercolours. I just love the way it gives so much life to a card, but doesn’t add lots and lots of dimension which makes it hard to post.

In fact, this whole card is a one-layer card – there is zero dimension to it at all. I am sure you know that this is pretty unusual for me (as I LOOVEE dimension) but I like to mix it up now and again! Plus, I really wanted to paint this cute monster! HE’S ADORABLE!

First I used masking paper to mask two areas of my watercolour cardstock, then I stamped images all over the background to create a pattern. I used memento ink for this because I knew that it is waterproof and would not bleed when I added the watercolour paint. The masking paper that I have is actually more like masking plastic, so it resists the ink and paint, although most masking paper is more like a post it note – so it doesn’t resist the ink, but still protects the card underneath. Both work just fine, but if you are trying this at home with the paper mask – then yours might look a little different compared to mine in the video at this stage. 🙂

I used tumbled glass and broken china distress inks on my background, and then reached for my kuretake gansai tambi watercolours to colour in the images on my card. I used both a number 4 and number 3 ProArte round paint brush, mostly the number 4 – it has a nice point which makes it easy to make even small lines on my project.

Once the background was coloured and dried, I then removed the mask and stamped the yeti image using tea dye distress ink. This creates a very light stamped image that is barely visible – you can use the lines as a guide for painting, but when the painting is complete, you cannot see any trace of stamped lines. This way you can pretend that you are a super good illustrator and painter, and no one will ever know the difference! LOL 🙂

When it came to painting the yeti, layers was the key for me, and because of this, it certainly took time. The video is rather sped up but I wanted you to see the whole card come together, so please forgive me if its a bit faster than my usual videos. Even though this card doesn’t have actual dimension, I wanted to create the illusion of dimension, and to do this I used my paintbrush to paint small lines for the yeti’s fur, and used a variety of different colour tones. I wasn’t afraid to leave a few white (unpainted) spots, as this actually makes it look like highlights on the image.

Around the edges of the image I used my paints to create a darker border or outline of each coloured section, and also added some shadows using watered down black paint. I like the way this gives more life to the final image!

Once I was happy with my painted yeti, I then moved over to my greeting. I removed the strip of masking paper from the bottom of the card, and used my MISTI tool and some SSS Sparrow ink to stamp the ‘are you YETI for Christmas?’ stamp, also from the MFT Beast Friends set.

My card was almost done, I simply added a few details with my white gel pen, around the scalloped circle, greeting strip and to add highlights to some the background images – especially the Santa hats.

I simply mounted the painted cardstock onto a folded card blank and my the card was done! HAZZAH!
Isn’t it cute! I love him!

Be sure to check out the video here, walking you through the whole process, and at the end of the video you will also see another painted yeti that I made for a tag.

In other news, the HoneyBeeStamps gang are having a Crafty Clearout! Jump on over to the ‘clearing out the hive’ Facebook page, and look at the ALBUMS to see what is available from each of the girls.

Some designers are based in the UK, others are from elsewhere in the world, so postage will vary depending on who you buy from. They seem to be clearly labelled so far! 🙂

Also, over on the HoneyBeeStamps Blog, they are celebrating 12 Days of Christmas, with 12 guest designers! Why not take a look to see who has been getting crafty! Here is a link to take you right to day 1–> 12 days of Christmas with HoneyBeeStamps!

Have fun, and happy Crafting, my friends!!

Lesley

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Magnetic Slider Baby Card ft. Lawn Fawn & Polychoromos pencils

on November 20, 2016

Morning crafty friends! Today I am sharing a video showing how I made this fun card – I promise, there is more than meets the eye!

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This is an interactive slider card with a fun magic wand (and by magic, of course I really mean magnetic, but MAGIC sounds better to me, teehee) <3

Over the last few weeks, we have seen the arrival of quite a few bambinos – first it was baby Wesley, then baby Arlo, then baby Amelia, then Baby Murray! I guess it is a Baby Boom year within our circle of fiends! So it no wonder that I am super inspired to make baby cards at the moment.

The inspiration for this card also come from my new box of polychromos pencils which arrived that morning. I managed to pick up a box from a crafty clear out on Facebook, and my idea was to use colouring pencils to create a soft, storybook feel to my stamped images.

First I stamped the owl image from the Jump For Joy stamp set from Lawn Fawn onto smooth white cardstock with black ink. Then I also stamped a cute star shaped balloon which is from the Ellie stamp set from Avery Elle. To create the soft storybook look, I used my polychromos colouring pencils to make dots and small strokes to the paper instead of solidly colouring the whole image. The polychromos were great for this, because they are not as waxy as some other colouring pencils can be. After colouring, I fussy cut the star with scissors leaving a small white border around the star, and I use the owl coordinating die to do some partial die cutting of the owl – I left the area under is feet uncut, as I wanted to create a tab under him – you can see exactly what I mean in the video.

For the background, I cut out some watercolour cardstock using the All Prettied Up scalloped rectangle die from Mama Elephant, then I stamped some trees onto the background using SimonSaysStamp mint ink. I used the MISTI to stamp right on top of the inked trees with some clear embossing ink. By melting some clear embossing powder on top of the trees, this creates a protective barrier on the trees which can be used in the embossing resist technique. This means they are prefectly maintained when I then went in and inked the blue sky over the top! You can see that I also added some clouds with white embossing powder- which are from the Lawn Fawn Yay, Kites stamp set.

I used the Lawn Fawn Big Scripty Words stamp to add the word congrats onto the front panel of the card (which was cut using the Simple Stitched border die from Lawn Fawn), and then I added a ‘Its A Boy’ greeting below, using the Personal impressions Double Sayings stamp set. I wanted this greeting to be all in capital letters, so I had to mask two stamps to get the image I wanted. I used my MISTI tool to get a perfect stamped image.

Under the top panel, I used the Slide On Over dies from Lawn Fawn to cut a slider channel, and then used a magnet as the sliding mechanism, instead of a piece of foam tape. After the card was completed, I created a ‘Magic Wand’ using some paper die cut with a tag die which had a magnetic hidden inside. I also stamped a small heart on the tag (over the magnet) and on the inside of the card, just behind where the owl sits – this gives the recipient an idea of where to place their magic wand in order to make the owl run back and forth with his cute balloon!

Here is the full tutorial, walking you through exactly how I made the card. Enjoy!

And Congratulations to Andy & Maisie, Charlie and Andy, Ashley & Jessica, Amy & Mark and to all the other families out there that have been blessed with a new arrival recently! <3

Thanks for stopping by!

Lesley

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