New Beginnings

Perhaps one of your New Year's Resolutions to use up more of your crafty stash?  If so, this card may provide some inspiration as it shows what you can achieve with just 2 sheets of card and a small offcut of vellum from your stash when combined with your existing dies and punches.

Card Recipe:
Tools: Tonic Window Die, Tonic Studios Window Box Die,  Tonic Studios Gothic Square Die, Tonic Studios Simplicity Dotty Border Punch, Tonic Studios Butterfly Border Punch, Tonic Studios Corner Rounder, Kushgrip Art Knife, Tonic Craft Tacky Glue, Grand Calibur, 
Paper and Card: Stardream card, opalescent vellum

Many followers of my blog will know I have a bit of an obsession with my domed window die, and this time I've combined it with the coordinating window box die. Unusually for me, I've kept things very clean and simple with just two soft shades of cardstock.

I made the blind from a small offcut of pearly vellum, punched with the Simplicity Dotty Border Punch, and pleated a couple of times, then trimmed to fit the window. 

Although this card is simple to make, just a few added details, which take moments, I think makes all the difference.  In this case, it's been achieved by adding a small scattering of tiny butterflies and flowers (the "waste" from, respectively, the Butterfly Border Punch and Daisy Circle Die, and cut from offcuts of card).

Here's one final look at how I've used dies, punches and old stash to make this week's card....

Happy Crafting!

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Fruit of the Vine Men's Card

My Dad spent a lot of his working life in the wine trade, so what could be more apt than this card for his birthday.  Cheers! 

Card Recipe:
Stamp: Stamps Happen Wine Collage
Colouring Mediums: Memento Black Ink, Promarker Pens, Flexmarkers,
Paper and Card: Creative Imaginations, Textured, Joanna Sheen's Elegance Satin
Tools: Tonic Studios Gothic Square Die Set, Tonic Studios Gothic Border Punch, Tonic Studios Verdant Vines Die, Corner Rounder, Grand Calibur
Embellishments: Raffia, Buttons, Twine, Glossy Accents
The main image is stamped with a Wine Collage stamp by Stamp Happens - it's actually an oblong, but I just chopped off one end to make it square shape as that's really what I needed for my card.

I coloured the image with Promarkers and washed the background with Flexmarkers (you just can't see that in the photo though). Finally, I used glossy accents over the glass bottles and wine glasses (again, really difficult to pick up in the photograph).

This stamped image has a very peculiar graphic in the bottom left corner, I have no idea what the artist meant if to be, so I just stuck my sentiment over it!

My corners are (appropriately) cut using Tonic Studios Verdant Vines corner dies to echo the wine feel of the card, and topped one off with this grapes on the vine button that I've had in my stash for years.

The wine papers are also old stash, from Creative Imaginations, I think that they work really well on this card.  

Some raffia and buttons tied through with twine add so additional accenting to the card.



I'd like to enter this card into the following challenge:
Moving Along with the Times - Birthday Boy











So here's one final look

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Altered Halloween Trick or Treat Brown Paper Bags

Trick or Treat!  This is a fun project to transform brown sandwich bags into Spooktacular treat bags.  Lots of techniques used, including: Dry Embossing ● Heat Embossing ● Stamping  ● Decoupage ●  Die Cutting ● Punches ● Accenting ● Charms

Project Recipe:Stamps: Inkadinkadoo All Hallows Eve
Colouring Mediums: Versamark Ink, Versafine Ink, Martha Stewart Embossing Powder, WOW embossing powder, pigment ink pad, Black Soot Distress Ink
Paper and Card: DCWV, WRMK, vellum
Tools: Tonic Studios Gothic Die, Tonic Studios Gothic Border Punch, Tonic Label Dies, Grand Calibur, Embossalicious Embossing Folder, Silhouette Cameo
Embellishments: silver-tone charms, Bakers Twine, glossy accents

My "Oldies" (ie using up bits and bobs from my stash that's over 6 month's old) are everything apart from the Bakers Twine and Charms. 

Step 1 - Creating the Topper

The topper has lots of great detail to it.  First of all, I die cut a label shape the stamped my Happy Halloween in Versamark Ink which I then heat embossed with WOW extra fine black embossing powder.  Once melted, the embossing powder acts as a resist, meaning that I was then able to over stamp with the cobweb corner stamp, but it has the illusion of sitting behind the Halloween greeting.  I also stamped on the filigree spider and accented the spider body with glossy accents to create dimension.  For the pumpkins and Versamrk ink, I first stamped "off-the-edge" of the main label and heat embossed with Martha Stewart Peridot Glitter Embossing Powder.  I then stamped the image twice more onto a slightly lighter piece of orange card and heat embossed with WOW black.  I layered up the pumpkins to create some lovely dimension.  

Don't think you always need to buy finishing accents for your projects, they are quite easy to make yourself.  I printed off the word SPELLS onto another offcut of the lighter orange card, cut it out with a tiny banner die and edged it with black ink.  I then tore a small strip of calligraphy-printed vellum and rolled it into a scroll, and glued the SPELLS card around it.  A lovely little accent and made from a few scraps.





Step 2 - Creating the Tag

That said, I did use some sweet silver-tone charms to accent my Tag, attached with sppoky halloween Bakers Twine and a tiny brad.

The tag was cut using the very aptly named Gothic Die Set from Tonic Studios, and I used Black Soot distress ink around the edge.  The mat was cut on my Cameo Silhouette using the trace method.  I have imported all of my Tonic Dies into my Cameo to do this, very useful.

The Trick & Treat sentiment was stamped and heat embossed.


Step 3 - Finishing the Bag

My brown paper sandwich bags fitted perfectly into an 8" Embossalicous embossing folder, so I used the Polka Dot folder and then swiped over the raised embossing with an orange pigment Ink Pad.  

I had a sheet of 12" WRMK cardstock that was Halloween borders, so I cut this into strips and mounted it onto black card that had been edged with the Gothic Border Punch.  This created a decorative edge to the top of my Altered Halloween Trick or Treat Brown Paper Bags.

Here's one final look:

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Best Dressed

Hello, sorry to have been away from my blog for a couple of weeks, life is a bit hectic currently.  It’s also not helped at the moment with the fact that the entire contents of my craft room are currently packed up in boxes in my garage, so I can honestly say that this card has taken me longer to make than almost any previously!  However, I hope you all enjoy it, as I've made it for this fortnight's challenge over on An Oldie But A Goodie.  It was my turn to choose the theme, and I selected Best Dressed.  I've used a gorgeous Rick St Dennis digi stamp image as the focal point for my card, as Rick is kindly sponsoring this challenge.

Card Recipe:

Stamp: Rick St Dennis

Colouring Mediums: Promarker Pens, Chalks

Paper & Card: My Mind’s Eye, Stardream, Elegant Satin
Tools: Tonic Studios Petal Pairs, Label Die, Gothic Die & Punch, Silhouette Cameo

Embellishments: Creative Expression pearl swirls, crystals, pearls, Prima Got Flowers

This glamorous lady is a Rick St Dennis image, coloured with my trusty Pro-Markers and Flexi-Markers – but not my usual selection for hair and skin – I could only find half of my pens in the garage, so necessity became the mother of invention, and I used my 2012 Special Edition colours.
I love images of ladies in glamorous clothes.

 I love pearl swirls, and these ones from Creative Expressions which have been lurking in my stash for some time were great as they came in a left and right version, working perfectly with my design.

The floral flourish embellishment at the top is made by mixing up a variety of die cuts, punched flowers and mulberry flowers.  I like the combination of hand-made and pre-made. The gorgeous background papers are by My Minds Eye, and I've combined the larger patterned 12" sheet for the card layer with the more petite print on the 6" pad on the two outer labels.

 

Please do pop over to the Oldie But A Goodie Challenge and enter.  Don't forget, you just need to follow this fortnight's theme (Best Dressed) and use at least one item from your stash that's over 6 months old.  My "oldie" items are the papers, pearl swirls, rhinestones, cardstock, flowers, promarkers, ink and chalks!

 

I am also entering this card into the following challenges:

Crafty Calendar - Colour Challenge
Deep Ocean - Blue
Stampin' for the Weekend - Sparkle & Bling

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A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

Today's card may look a little familiar as it is a revamp of a card I did for my sneak peak of the new Tonic Studios Verso Dies.  The card was perfectly fine, (you can see it here) but I'd made it very quickly for the launch, and felt it needed something more. So, I did some titivating and now it's great for my fortnightly Design Team card for An Oldie But  A Goodie Challenge.  This fortnight our theme of Butterflies has been chosen by the lovely Natali.

Card Recipe: 
Stamp: Kanban Spring Trees & Butterflies
Colouring Mediums: Encore Ultimate Metallic Ink , Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink Pad
Paper & Card: Tonic Studios, Stardream, Textured Pearl
Tools: Tonic Studios Gothic Border Verso Die Set, Tonic Studios Gothic Border Punch, Tonic Studios Butterfly Srip Punch, Grand Calibur

Embellishments: Rhinestone Crystals, Glitter

To make this card, I die cut the mat from a lovely sheet of patterned card from the Butterflies Beautiful using the largest die pair from the Gothic Border Square set. I then stamped my Kanban tree image onto the mat with Encore Ultimate Metallic ink and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.  I inked around the edge of the mat with Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink, to emphasise the Gothic Border and added a few accent crystal rhinestones.  In my original card, I didn't do anything more with this mat other than to mount it onto the background card layer.

However, when I went back to revisit it, I thought I would turn it into a Butterfly Tree.  To do this, I took a selection of card offcuts in a variety of colours.  Then I applied double-sided adhesive, covered them with glitter and used the Butterfly Strip Border to punch out a kaleidoscope of tiny butterflies.  The butterflies are  normally the waste from punching out the Butterfly Border Strip but these tiny flights of fancy were the perfect size to transform my stamped tree into a Butterfly Tree.  

For a little difference, instead of mounting my stamped image proud of the card front, I actually inset it by raising the surrounding layer on foam pads, and the new Tonic Studios Verso Dies are perfect for this technique.  I think it gives an interesting dimension to the card.

Finally, I cut a 4.2cm strip of coordinating card and punched both sides of it with the Gothic Border punch, before decorating with more rhinestones.

Please pop over to the main Oldie But A Goodie Challenge Blog to check out the gorgeous inspiration from my lovely DT buddies. To enter the challenge yourself, you can make anything you like Card, ATC, L/O etc as long as it fits in with the theme and that you use something on your project that is over 6 months old.  We're also sponsored for this challenge by Bugaboo Digi Stamps so there is a lovely prize up for grabs too.  My "oldies" are all my card stock, stamp, glitter, crystals and ink pads.  I'm sure you've also got lots of stash to use up too!

 

Thanks for popping by to see me today - you are always welcome - and I always look forward to reading any comments you may leave.

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Sneak Peak - Tonic Studio's New Verso Range!

Oh, how exciting - Tonic Studios are launching a brand new range of co-ordinating Dies and Punches as a Four Day Deal on Create & Craft on Monday!  I've been having a play with the Gothic Die Set and matching Gothic Border Punch, want to have a peek?

The Verso dies contain 5 dies in each set and allow multiple combinations of designs to suit your project.  Each Verso Die Set has a co-ordinating Simplicity Pattern Punch, allowing you to create beautiful repeatable borders and strips, especially as these punches can go through even 400gsm heavyweight card.  Being Tonic, these dies and punches are an absolute dream to use (no fiddling around with wax paper etc).

On my card, I used the largest medallion die and matching outline die.  I punched the border by cutting a 4.2cm wide strip of card and punched both sides to create this strip, which I then decorated with rhinestones.

Here's a final look as this gorgeous die set.  Don't forget to tune into Create and Craft at 8am on Monday 10th June to see the launch of these gorgeous dies.

More details at Tonic Studios.

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