Butterfly Stained Glass die with Pixie Powders

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How are you all keeping? It is Friday and the weather is a bit dull here today. We are going away for a short holiday tonight. I won't be around to do my usual commenting I will get as far as I can this afternoon and catch up when we get back. My blog won't be completely quiet as I have scheduled  three Design Team posts while we are away. I will have a lot to catch up with when we get back.

When we were in Bristol for the wedding we had a free morning on the Friday before. We had forgotten a few things so we popped out to find the local Sainsburys. On the way we found a brand new Range store  and it would have been rude not to go in. We had a coffee and then I treated myself to a die. I choose the Stained Glass Butterfly die by Sue Wilson.

So this week I had a play. To get some ideas I watched a Youtube tutorial by Sue Wilson herself.

The backing paper came from my stash. 

The sentiment was cut with a Sue Wilson die. 

This shows the detail of the die. I used Pixie powders to create the background. When it was very dry (I did use a heat gun) I covered it with some double sided sticky sheet. I stuck the die cut to the sticky sheet I had left a nice big border on the die. Once it was stuck in place the rest of the sticky was covered with Microbeads. Finally I cut the whole thing to size with one of the Double Pierced Rectangle dies. 

Quite a simple card to make. I did enjoy getting inky with the Pixie Powders. 

I would like to enter challenge 261 at the Brown Sugar Challenge blog and challenge 381 at the Crafty Catz Challenge blog. 

Enjoy your weekend. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Pollyanna Pickering - Little Owl Birthday Card

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How is your week going? Well yesterday  I walked out of work for the last time - I am now officially retired . I do have very  mixed emotions but I am sure that I have done the right thing. Being able to choose when to go on holiday will be a big thing.

I have been a bit intermittent with card making since the wedding. I went back to my favourite Pollyanna Pickering images for some inspiration.

I added some paper from a Creative World of Crafts pad. 

To match the image I added  die cut trees using the Winter Trees dies designed by Sue Wilson for Creative Expressions. 

This image is from a Pollyanna Pickering sketch pad. The Little Owls are so cute. 

Here are all the cards and presents I received yesterday. I had been working there for over 20 years. Some of the cards are very inventive I might be stealing some of the ideas for my own card making. 

This is another card for my stash owl cards are always popular. 

I would like to enter challenge 123 at the Creative Moments Challenge Blog. 

Enjoy the rest of the week. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Flower Fairies Gift Collection from Cardmaking & Papercraft Magazine

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

Happy Weekend. I hope you are doing something nice. Yesterday we visited our daughter and her new husband. They have been married for exactly a week. Doesn't time go by quickly. We did have a brilliant time at the wedding. We have lots of lovely memories to cherish.

Well I keep treating myself to crafty bits and pieces the latest being the August issue of Cardmaking & Papercraft Magazine with its Flower Fairy Gift Collection. I remember the flower fairies from my youth and I know my mother-in-law loves them too.

The gorgeous paper came with the kit. There is gold foiling on the frames of the images so I added gold and purple mats and layers. 

This is a small picture of a Harebell. 

This is the Harebell Fairy she is very pretty. The paintings of the flower fairies were done in the 1920's by Cicely Mary Barker. 

The sentiment was cut with a a Spellbinders die I do like the font. 

I was very pleased with how this card turned out. There are lots of elements left in the kit so I will be making some more cards and other things. 

Enjoy the rest of the weekend. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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The Wedding Card I made for our Daughter and her new Husband.

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

The wedding is well and truly over. I have been very slow about getting the house sorted. We have managed to make ourselves very busy we were worried about feeling a bit flat after the wedding but that hasn't really happened. I will have a few days when I finish work to get some things sorted before we go on holiday.

I made a lot of things for the wedding and of course I made them a card as well.

As I had made things for the wedding I was able to use papers and elements from other makes for their card. 

This is the top of the card. 

The birdcage is an Apple Blossom die and the birds and branches are Sizzix dies. 

This is the lower part of the easel. 

These lovebirds were used on the invitations. 

This is the happy couple just after they had been married. You can see the things I made: the trees, the bouquet, the buttonhole and the little display for the table. This photo was taken by Chris Carter of Super Effective Photography. 

They had a lovely display, in their room at the hotel , of cards they had received. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Mixed Media Plate and Fairies

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How have you all been? It seems like ages since I have blogged. The wedding was brilliant we had such a lovely day. The zoo was such a good location for the wedding. When I have sorted my photos I will do a special blog post about the wedding. The happy couple went home after the wedding. Their honeymoon is in September.

The weekend before the wedding I made it to the Newbury Craft show. It was lovely because we had a good catch up with John Lockwood and he shared some of his plans with us and we saw Sam and some of his new stamps and stencils which you all know about now. He was demonstrating with mixed media plates that he was using with a Stamping Platform. I was impressed and I bought all three of the shapes of plate that were at the show. When you get home is it always difficult to remember what you have seen. Anyway in the week before the wedding I had a play.

Having watched John again on Hochanda I want to have another play. I used distress ink and stamps from my collection. I do seem to have a lot of fairy stamps. I used various stencils from my collection too. Though now I have seen John's stamps and stencils I want those too. All the black stamping was done with black archival ink. The frames were made with the Douvle  

This was the first card I made. 

All the cards were sprayed with Crafter's Companion Pearl Spray and Shine. 

I do want to make some Christmas cards with the mixed media plates. I think they will really speed up my card production. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Sunflower - Thank You cards

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How is your week going? As you can imagine we are very busy with the lead up to the wedding. This will be my last blog post for a while. Tomorrow we are setting off to Bristol for the wedding. We have a meeting at the venue where we hand over all the decorations and the table plans. Then on Friday everyone starts to gather and Saturday is the day of the wedding. Until we return home I won't be around much in blogland there just won't be time.

I love sunflowers they are just so cheerful so I treated myself to issue 148 of Papercraft Essentials magazine with its free sunflower stamp set and paper pad.

I have just invested in a Tim Holtz stamping platform and I am so glad I have. I just makes stamping so much easier and if you miss a bit it is so easy to go back and re-ink it. For batch making it is a dream I am going to use it to make some Christmas cards. I had all the stamps on the platform and I stamped them all at the same time. I cut the layers out with the Double Pierced Rectangle dies by Creative Expressions. I added a lattice cut with Trellis Edger die set I extended it to make it long enough it was very easy to line up. 

All the stamping was done onto water colour card with Watering Can archival ink. All the colouring was done with my Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens. I wanted to stamp the pot straight onto the card as I liked the shadow for the pot. 

The bee came from another stamp set. 

The sentiment came with the set. 

With all the stamps in place it was easy to make this smaller card. 

Sunflowers are so cheerful. I now have three thank you cards for the end of term. 

I would like to enter challenge 122 at the Creative Moments Challenge blog. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Distress Oxides - Summer Weeds Woodware stamp

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How has your weekend been? We were very busy on Saturday delivering things for other people to take to the wedding next week, collecting my parents case as they are now coming on the train  and we had a brief trip to the Newbury Craft show. After all this we did have a barbecue at our daughter's and her fiance's house which was lovely. We won't be calling him that much longer. Then on Sunday I finished the table plan. So all my crafty makes for the wedding are finished.

A few weeks ago at the Portsmouth Craft show I treated myself to three shades of Distress Oxides. I bought Faded Jeans, Broken China and Cracked Pistachio. I watched the online demo by Tim Holtz introducing them and on Friday I had a go.

To this is my first try. I put all three shades on my craft mat and spritzed them with water and wiped the paper through them. I did this a few times and I used a heat gun to dry the paper in between. I must admit I like the chalky finish. 

The stamp I used is by Woodware and is called Summer Weeds. I now have a Tim Holtz stamping platform and I used it here. I used Perfect Medium to stamp the image in fact I did that twice before I heat embossed with a black sparkly powder. 

There is no sentiment there wasn't really room. I can always add one later. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Emerald City Crafts Blog Challenge

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How is your week going? The fridge and the freezer are safely here and working perfectly.

The new Emerald City Crafts Challenge Blog first ever challenge starts today.

It is a  monthly challenge which starts on the first Friday of each month. The theme is always Anything Goes and that means you can create anything! Mixed media, tags, ATC's or cards.
The challenge will be open for 3 weeks. The winner and top 3 will receive a badge with their name added. The blog is run by Linda Simpson and she has an Etsy shop where she sells Ephemeral and papers.

The image came from a set of images that Linda sells. The music paper and the ribbon were in my stash. I added some texture with the stitched flag dies by Creative expressions and some distress ink. 

As there were poppies I decided to add die cut poppies. 

I do like making poppies. 

Why not join us for our first challenge. 

I would like to enter challenge 47 at the Crafting with Friends Challenge blog , challenge 134 at the Creative Fingers Challenge blog and challenge 47 at the A Bit More Time to Craft Challenge blog.

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Moving Along With the Times (MAWTT) theme Wedding, Anniversary Engagement

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How is your week going? We were very successful with our fridge and freezer shopping and they are arriving later today. It is good to have that sorted out. We have been able to have a sort out in the kitchen as well.

The new challenge starts on the Moving Along with the Times challenge blog and the theme is Wedding, Anniversary or Engagement all about happy couples really.

It is too soon for me to share the wedding card I have made for our daughter and her fiance. I am sharing an anniversary card I made for some good friends.

I made a wedding card earlier in the year with a very similar design. I used the corner die from the French collection designed by Sue Wilson for Creative Expressions. 

I cut this frame with the Innsbruck die set from the Austrian collection by Sue Wilson. The sentiment was cut with a Signature die. 

Enjoy the rest of the week. I will let you know how we get on with the fridge and the freezer. 

I would like to enter challenge 39 at the Craft Rocket Challenge blog. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Unicorn Challenge Blog - Christmas in July

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How is your week going? I can't believe how close we are to the wedding it is less than two weeks away. Hopefully all the planning we have put in place will mean everything runs smoothly.

The first Tuesday in the month sees the start of the new challenge on the Unicorn Challenge blog and the theme is Christmas in July. I have been making Christmas cards all year so this was not a stretch for me.

I started with a Christmas card from last year. Can you see the pattern on Tatty Ted's hat? Well in my stash I had the paper that matched the pattern on the hat. I just had to use it. 

This is a very cute image. I was able to match the layers to colours in the image. 

Why not enter the challenge it is never too early to start your Christmas cards. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Build a Bouquet die and stamp set from issue 162 of Simply Cards & Papercraft

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

I hope your weekend has been good. We did manage to buy a fridge and matching freezer from a local shop some friends told us about recently and the price was good too. My husband has been working on his speech for the wedding and that is nearly finished. I just have the table plan  that will be displayed to finish this will be done next weekend. I had to make another for the caters so they know where everyone will be sitting.

When I got issue 162 of Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine I just had to use the Build a Bouquet stamp and die set that came with the magazine. I made a card and sent it into the magazine. Well I have had issue 164 at home for a while (I have a subscription) and when I couldn't sleep last night I was looking through it and on page 98 I spotted my card.

All the papers I used were in my stash. The jam jar had its own die. 

The sentiment came with the set and was stamped with Watering Can Archival ink. I matted it with the same card as the main mats for the card. 

The single flower stamp had its own die so it was easy to cut out. I stamped with Watering Can Archival and I coloured with my Stampin Up water colour pencils. 

I stamped the main bouquet three times once coloured I cut them out by hand. 

Here is my card printed in issue 164 of Simply Cards & Papercraft.  They wrote a lovely message about the card. 

Have a great week.

I would like to join the challenge at the Seize the Birthday Challenge blog. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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