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Sunday 28 February 2010

Saturday Sketch challenge

I enjoyed yesterday's challenge so much that I thought I'd do another. This time it's Saturday Sketch 140 from Stamping 411. I love doing these challenges because the constraints often push me outside my comfort zone. That's a good thing! Here's the card I made:


I found a scrap of this beautiful old paper and tried to create a vintage feel with faded colours, and just the vibrant flowers taking centre stage.

Here's what I used (all Stamping Up):
Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Really Rust, Pumpkin Pie and Certainly Celery.
Ink: Bashful Blue (for sponging) Ballet Blue (for sentiment), Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie (for sponging flower petals).
Stamps: Leaf from With Gratitude (retired), sentiment from Three for You (retired)
Other: Boho Blossoms punch, Scallop circle punch, Scallop border punch, gold brads.

Well that's it for my challenge today.
I have no doubt that life will throw up plenty of challenges in the week ahead!
Better get some sleep so I can be ready for them...
Hope you have a good week. See you soon.

Vicky

Saturday 27 February 2010

FTL80 challenge

(Singing) It's the most wonderful time of the week... no, not bedtime - it's fall-to layout challenge time! Those brilliant ladies over at Clean and Simple Stamping have come up with another gorgeous sketch to inspire us. Here's my take on it.


I love how the butterfly turned out. I stamped it on Whisper White with Chocolate Chip ink, coloured it using Bashful Blue and Ballet Blue and my trusty blender pen, then cut it out carefully with my sharp scissors. Here's a close-up.


The blender pens give it a lovely iridescent quality. I often stamp things I'm going to colour with Choc Chip ink because it doesn't smudge like black does. Yes I know that Stazon doesn't smudge but I don't like the smell!

Here's what I used (all supplies are Stampin Up):
Stamps: Butterfly from Touch of Nature, branch from Garden Silhouettes (hostess, retired), sentiment from Basic Phrases
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Bashful Blue, Ballet Blue, Garden Green, Cameo Coral
Cardstock: Certainly Celery, Garden Green, Whisper White
Other: designer paper (retired), piercing tool

It seems a long time since I saw a butterfly but the daffodils and crocuses in my garden are pushing their way up, undeterred by the cold. There's been a snowdrop standing there with its hands on its hips for some time now and next to it a very confused clump of primroses. They are a sign that miracles happen.

Miracles may be happening in the garden but I don't think my house is going to clear itself up. It's on with the pinny for me!
See you tomorrow.


Vicky

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Man cards!

I came over all manly today! No, that doesn't mean I got my big trousers out - it means I thought I'd better start replenishing my stash of cards to give to the guys.

I thought the SU Trendy Trees stamp set would lend itself to masculine quite nicely and nice earthy, outdoors colours - Garden Green, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip cardstock and Garden Green, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie inks. Here are a couple of cards I came up with.


I've been enjoying using sewing on my cards lately but today I thought I'd go for a more controlled look with faux stitching. I brought out my soft Derwent pencils as well - haven't used those in a while - and drew in a simple, stylised background for the trees.


This one has real stitching. I thought two rows of messy stitching would be good for a man (but perhaps I'm mixing with the wrong sort of man!) To finish the card off I added this twine-around-the-brad feature.

I really enjoyed these masculine projects today.
Hope they've helped you get in touch with your masculine side!

Vicky

PS. All this leather-look, studs and faux stitching has got me thinking about a gift presentation box. Look out for that soon on this blog!

Sunday 21 February 2010

FTL79 Challenge

This is my take on the fab Clean and Simple FTL79 challenge. I couldn't find a stamp I wanted to use for this, although I was definitely in the mood for this dotty SU paper. In the end, after discarding several stamped images (and saving them for use another day - waste not, want not!) I paper-pieced this cup-cake using a couple of circle punches and a pair of sharp scissors.




I think I've just got cakes on the brain. My youngest son and I made a rather fine banana cake together this weekend and it was SCRUMPTIOUS!

Thanks for looking today.

Vicky

Thursday 18 February 2010

The gift bag tutorial

More birthdays are looming on the horizon and I've come up with another coordinated gift set. A mug is always a welcome present - especially if it's a hug of a mug like this popular design by the incredible Emma Bridgewater.

And if the mug is nestling in a bed of tissue paper in a made-to-measure, coordinating gift bag and accompanied by a matching card, it makes the present rather special.

Adding hot chocolate, marshmallows etc piles on the Yum factor!

Here's the set I came up with to coordinate with the mug.


Some people have been quite interested in these gift bags so I thought I'd do a tutorial. (It's my first one so please bear with me...) Here's what I used:


I've used wallpaper lining paper as I love the suede-ish texture and the colour is a perfect cream, but you could use any flexible paper. You also need SU Very Vanilla card stock for the card and tag, Real Red and Blush Blossom inks, a sentiment stamp (mine's by Inca), a small heart stamp (mine's from Clear Choice's Love), ribbon (mine's by East of India), 5 red jumbo eyelets and a cropadile (sorry I forgot to include them in the pic!). Oh and a scallop punch (forgot that in the pic too!)

First measure your mug, adding half an inch each side it so it has room in the bag. My mug was 6" wide and 4 1/2" deep including the extra room. So the width of my paper needed to be 2 x 6" (front and back of the bag) plus 2 x 4 1/2" (sides of the bag) plus 1/2" for the flap = 21 1/2". My mug was 6" tall and 4 1/2" deep including the extra room, so  the height of my paper needed to be 6" +  4 1/2"(for the base of the bag) = 10 1/2". Hope that makes sense.

So we start with a piece of paper 21 and 1/2" wide  and 10 and 1/2" high. Score and fold it at 4 1/2", 10 1/2", 15" and 21". Now it looks like this.


Next measure 4 1/2" up from the bottom of the paper and score and fold it horizontally like this.


Snip the vertical lines up to the horizontal line. Cut the bottom of the 1/2" flap of completely.


Scallop the top edge of the paper if you like to make a pretty trim on the top of your bag.


Okay. Time to do some stamping. I chose to decorate only the two 6" panels which will be the front and back of the bag.


Use a pencil to make a mark at 2" and 4" about an inch below the scalloped edge on the decorated panels. Use these as a guide to set the eyelets with a cropadile.


Fix double sided tape to the 1/2" inch flap next to one of the decorated panels.



Now turn the project over and fix double sided tape to the bottom flap below the left-hand eyelet panel.
Now start to assemble the bag. The key to this, I've found, is to do it slowly and gradually, making sure you line up the edges.




The two flaps either side of the taped flap need to come in now. I take one piece of tape off at a time and carefully line up the edges before fixing.

Now the bag should look like this.

Fix double sided tape on the last flap - I've just begun to do that here. This flap is going to be the very bottom of the bag so try to make it neat!



Here we go! Finish off that flap with another piece of double sided tape and fix it neatly into place.


Now peel off the backing of the tape you fixed to the 1/2" flap and stick it carefully to the loose edge to complete your bag shape.



Thread ribbon through the eyelets and secure with knots to make handles for your gift bag.



Make a pretty tag using Very Vanilla card stock, dry-embossed with lines and decorated with hearts. Sponge the edges with Blush Blossom ink.


And a matching card.


And there we have it! My first tutorial (woohoo!)
Hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

If you feel inspired to make a coordinating gift set using a piece of inspirational china (or anything else for that matter) I would love to see your projects so please leave me a link!

Bye for now.

Vicky

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Is it spring yet?

The sun came out for a few minutes today. I nearly fell over!
It inspired me to make this card.


I love all the geometric patterned papers around at the moment. This is a SU paper. The stems are an Inkadinkado stamp and I raided my button stash for the flowers which I love - but I apologise for taking the worst photo ever as the buttons are casting a shadow and making it look as if I positioned them over the leaves - as if I would be such a looby! (Well, actually,  it has been known...)

Do you think if enough of us make spring cards it will act like a sort of rain dance and bring out the sun?
No, me neither but it's worth a try.
Thanks for calling in today.

Vicky


Tuesday 16 February 2010

Birthday with a leaf theme

My lovely friend Caroline had a birthday last week and I bought her this gorgeous jug designed by Katrin Moye. When it came to making her card I thought it would be nice to echo the beautiful leaf design on the jug so I came up with this:


The card base was made using Sahara Sand card stock. I cut a smaller piece of Kraft card stock, sewed a border around it and inked the edges with Sahara Sand ink. The leaf, from With Gratitude, was stamped with Sage Shadow ink onto Sage Shadow card stock. When I'd cut it out I positioned it on the Kraft and drew the flower veins and stem in black. The dots were drawn with a Versamark pen and heat embossed with white embossing powder. Once everything was assembled I stamped a sentiment in Sahara Sand.

I was so pleased with how the card turned out that I was inspired to make this gift bag to hold the jug.


That beautiful, vanilla-coloured, suede-feel bag was actually a piece of thick wallpaper lining paper, scalloped on the edge with the SU scallop border punch. I set a pair of jumbo eyelets into each side using my Cropadile and threaded them with some gorgeous chocolate-coloured velvet ribbon to make handles. I'll definitely be making more of these bags so look out for a tutorial on this blog very soon.

I made this decorative panel using the leaf motif and fixed it on one side of the bag. And then, because I was on a roll...

...I rustled up this gift tag using my handy tag stamp by Inca, another of those eyelets and that leaf motif again.


So there we have it - a matching gift set!
I really enjoyed this project - I love it when things match.
Perhaps I should set up a dating agency!

See you tomorrow when I'll be in a spring mood.

Monday 15 February 2010

Challenge -FTL78

It's been a busy weekend but I just managed to squeeze in a card for the Fall-to Layout 78 challenge from the Clean and Simple team. Nice sketch this week - I'm loving these corner rounded edges at the moment.


There's been so much bad weather and bad news this year so I reached for some colour to cheer myself up. The hot pink and vibrant green make me feel the heat of the sun on my skin...

Hmmm - time for another hot water bottle I think.
See you soon.

Sunday 14 February 2010

Happy Valentines Day!

This house is bursting with lurve today. I snuck downstairs very early to pop all the little gifts and cards at everybody's breakfast setting and so there were loads of hugs and kisses and squishes for breakfast this morning!

I've already shown you some of the cards I made for my scrumptious family but here are one or two other little bits and pieces.

I made this card for my youngest son whose favourite colour is orange - would you have guessed? I like the way the hearts go shiny with a touch of white gel pen and of course the stitching... I am in love with stitching on cards.

Here are some cute origami treat boxes I made for the boys. A great big thank you to Janelle for the link to this amazing origami site where there are all sorts of fun things waiting to be made!

I bought some packets of Love Hearts and some little bars of chocolate to put in the boxes. The chocolate wasn't very Valentinish - could that be a word? - so I took the wrapper off, folded the foil back carefully and put these new wrappers on. I had run out of time so the new wrappers were lightning quick - just thin paper, sponged with ink and stamped with images from the Clear Choice Love set.

For my husband I'd bought a CD I'd found at a local market by Dickie Valentine (this may seem a little odd but he loves to try all sorts of music!) I made a little case to wrap it in out of a sheet of A4 paper, very simple and very useful so I'll post a tutorial at some stage. It's stamped with hearts from the Clear Choice Love set and a sentiment from the Stampin Up set Seasonal Wishes.


It's a murky old day here, perfect for curling up in the afternoon with someone you love and watching a film like Love Actually or A Lot Like Love with a mug of hot chocolate and some heart-shaped marshmallows.
Aaaaaah! Big love to you all!

Tuesday 9 February 2010

More vintage chic

It's definitely vintage-a-gogo here at Crafting Clare's Paper Moments! Here's another card with that 'atticky' feel. This time it's very feminine with a touch of the boudoir about it - think satin chemises, fragrant baths, crystal perfume bottles, strings of pearls...

It's easy to make. Here's how:


1. Cut a piece of SU Very Vanilla card stock 3 7/8" square and stitch a border 1/4" inside the edge using blush coloured cotton (I am loving this stitching!) Distress the edges slightly and sponge them with Blush Blossom ink.
2. Cut a piece of black and white paisley DP 3 7/8" x 2" (mine's by Anna Griffin - check out her inspirational site; you can access her blog from there too.) Adhere it to the left of your vanilla stitched square and sponge it with the ink too.
4. Fix a piece of black satin ribbon where the papers meet, letting the ends hang off slightly, and snip the ends diagonally with sharp scissors. (My lovely SU demo Michelle always tells me to keep a pair of scissors solely for use on ribbon. Now what did I do with them...?!)
5. Print or stamp a vintage-feel sentiment in black on Very Vanilla. Keep a straight side to the right of your sentiment and tear the rest into a rough triangle shape. Distress the edges and sponge them with Blush Blossom ink.
6. Place the sentiment on top of the ribbon and stitch the straight side to the vanilla card below.
7. Now adhere the whole thing to a mat of black card stock measuring 4 1/8" square.
8. Punch three small black flowers (I used the SU Three for You punch), add an adhesive pearl to each and position in the bottom left hand corner of your square.
9. Make the large flower by using the SU Scallop Circle punch on Very Vanilla card, snipping in towards the centre between each 'petal' with scissors and sponging the edges with blush Blossom ink. Punch another vanilla flower shape, this time using a smaller flower punch (mine was a Woodware one) and repeat the snipping and sponging. Layer the flower shapes together and top with a cream button threaded with black embroidery floss tied in a bow. (The button I used is a gorgeous, vintage one - the pride of my collection. You can tell that this card is intended for someone I like a lot!) Fix the finished flower to the top right hand side of the square overlapping the ribbon and the sentiment.
10. Now cut a piece of Very Vanilla 10" x 5" and fold it in half to make a card base 5" square. Adhere your decorated square to it - and there you are with a finished card!

I've just realised I didn't do any stamping on this card and I'm getting rubber-withdrawal systems. See you tomorrow for inky fun!

Monday 8 February 2010

Feeling vintage

When my daughter saw this card she described it as 'atticky' by which I'm very much hoping she meant 'vintage' rather than some old thing that's been buried under a pile of musty newspapers for ten years! It's quite a masculine card too - and they are always handy.

Here's how I made it:

1. Cut a piece of SU Night of Navy card stock 4 1/2" x 3 1/4". Stamp the top righthand corner with the leaf image from the (sadly retired) SU set Carte Postale and emboss with clear embossing powder.
2. Cut a piece of music paper 4 1/4" x 3" (mine is just a colour photocopy of old sheet music).
3. Make a decorative border on the left of the music paper with a spiral punch.
4. Tear off the top right hand corner, distress the edge and adhere to the navy card stock.
5. Fix a piece of vintage style ribbon to the right of the spiral punched border. My ribbon is from East of India - so gorgeous it makes me want to faint!
6. Stamp or print a sentiment using Chocolate Chip ink on Very Vanilla Card stock, cut out, round the corners and sponge the edges with Blush Blossom ink for that vintage look.
7. Stamp or print a vintage image (mine is from a fabulous site called The Graphics Fairy - check it out), cut out and sponge the edges again. Adhere the sentiment and image onto the music paper overlapping the ribbon.
8. Adhere the whole thing to a piece of A5 Very Vanilla, folded to make a card base.
9. Stamp the bird from Carte Postale in Bordering Blue ink and emboss with clear embossing powder. Cut out and pop him up in the right hand corner with dimensionals.
10. Embellish card with cream buttons.

I'm normally a clean and simple kind of a girl but I'm rather drawn to this vintage look.
Look out for more 'atticky' cards on this blog!

Saturday 6 February 2010

Fall to challenges

The Clean and Simple site has always been one of my favourites and I think I'm just about confident enough to try the challenges. I've made two cards today. The first is for FT77



I stamped the apple from the SU Tart and Tangy set in Old Olive, embossed it with clear embossing powder and cut it out. I've been looking for a good way to use this set and the matching DP - so thanks Natasha. The leaves are the branch from A Touch of Nature. I coloured only the leaves with my Garden Green marker and stamped it three times, then popped up the apple in front with a dimensional.

I know I'm a bit late to be showing you the card I made for FT76 but they say late is better than never...


Do you like the tiles? They were cut out of a photocopied sheet of old music. I added the Choc Chip band because I prefer not to be able to see ribbon on the inside of the card. The flower was left over from yesterday's card but I used a brown brad instead of cream. I printed the sentiment straight onto the Very Vanilla CS from my computer.

Well that was enough of a challenge for me. I can feel a vintage moment coming on - a card, not me! Look out for that tomorrow.
Bye for now.


Friday 5 February 2010

Feeling pale and interesting

Two cards today!

I've always been attracted to white-on-white, white-on-cream and soft, barely there colour schemes and some pale and interesting ideas have been chugging around my head for a while now. Here is what I've come up with:

This card uses my current favourite combination of Very Vanilla and Blush Blossom colours. I like to sponge the edges of the vanilla CS with blush blossom ink which gives a lovely vintage feel. The flowers are layered CS and vellum, punched with the SU Boho Blossoms and the scallop circle punches and secured with a cream brad. The ribbon has been wound round the card and anchored in holes made with the spiral punch. The fern is from Touch of Nature stamp set, stamped with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. Have you seen the stitching? I got very excited about the stitching!

If you're still with me after all that, come and see the second card.

A card like this would make a good wedding or anniversary card and with snowflakes, stars, holly etc would translate well into a Christmas card. (But I don't think I need to get going on those just yet!)

This one is white-on-white with touches of cream and gold. Again I've layered vellum with the CS and used the scallop border and the spiral punches on the edges. The five tiles are 3 cm square. There's that fern again and the little leaves are from Carte Postale - I stamped them with Versamark and embossed them with gold embossing powder.

By the way I'd like to thank Joan from Paperlicious whose tip on SCS made my embossing life so much easier - she suggests putting your work on a piece of shiny CS, scored down the middle, before sprinkling it with embossing powder. When you're finished, the powder pours smoothly back into the container thanks to the shiny CS. Thanks Joan!

Hope you found my pale cards interesting.
Think I might try Natasha's sketch on clean and simple stamping tomorrow. Why not play too?

Wednesday 3 February 2010

Hearts and Flowers

Isn't Valentines Day a fabulous idea? A day to celebrate love definitely gets my vote. And it never seems to be hard to get inspiration for a love card.
This is a card made from SU scraps.

The heart is from Happy Hearts retired in 2008 and the DP is ancient! (Good thing I'm not a demo as I'd find it too difficult to get rid of the old stuff.) The sentiment though is from Basic Phrases which is still going strong...

...unlike me. Must dodder off to bed.
Hope to see you soon.

Free calendar page download

I love making my calendar pages every month so I've uploaded the February and March calendar pages for anyone who wants to play too. I'll upload each month's page a month in advance (hope that makes sense). Just right-click on the images or just save-as from your toolbar to download. Them embellish as you wish. Have fun!


Tuesday 2 February 2010

Canine valentine

I may have mentioned before that my eldest son is a real dog lover. He and I have long conversations about our dog which is a golden retriever called Aramis. He's a very smiley dog with a waggy plume of a tail who likes to feel useful and is always fetching and carrying - newspapers, shoes, school books, my handbag. Although he is the family dog, he has a special bond with my son and, although it is strictly out of bounds, sneaks into his room at night to sleep on the end of the bed. Oh and there's one more thing about our dog and that is that he exists only in our imaginations. My son would love a real dog but since that isn't possible, Aramis fills the gap.

Here's the valentine I made for my lovely son.


I am a frugal crafter and was thrilled to find a doggy set of clear stamps on a market stall for a couple of pounds. The set doesn't include a golden retriever but hey - jack russells are nice too! The background is sponged in SU Ballet Blue and Certainly Celery. The stem is from SU hostess set Itty Bitty Buds and some of the hearts are punched, some doodled.

Hope you like the canine valentine.
I'm off to the kitchen to see if I can find some of those Good Boy treats.

Monday 1 February 2010

A new month - a new calendar page

Yay! It's February - one step closer to spring. You know things are getting bad when you find yourself stroking the summer clothes in your wardrobe in a wistful way.

Here's my new calendar page:


Readers of this blog will know that I don't buy a calendar for my hallway - I just make a calendar page each month. It works for me! I try to reflect the seasons and I think I'm getting there with this. We're having a cold winter here and the birds are getting a bit frantic in their search for food. We have to put bird food high in the tree in our tiny garden as the cat keeps wandering about out there licking her lips.


Here's a close-up. I used masking and sponging for the background; the bird is from SU Touch of Nature, weeds from SU Garden Silhouettes and Autumn Days; and leaves from a Clear Choice stamp set.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must get back to the crafting table.
Need to make a muzzle for the cat...