Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Tonic Studios Trellis Die

It's easy to get hooked on all the lovely dies available on the market right now, and there are more and more to choose from every month too, for just about every theme you can think of . This card is a mixture of embossing, Cheery Lynn and Tonic Studios Dies and punched flowers.


The great thing about dies over punches is that they will outlive punches which eventually wear and could break, plus the fact that you can cut thicker materials with dies, like heavy weight card, chipboard, foam and fabric.


The tonic die used is called Pick of the Bunch Trellis Wall Die.
the flowers are from old EK success daisy punches, and if you like the shape, its difficult to source the punches, so go for the spellbinders dies or the woodware punches instead


My all time favorite technqiue - partial embossing using a recent edition Papermania folder:


Monday, July 29, 2013

Kaisercraft and Flourishes Butterfly Stamps

Hi everyone, posting a simply stamped and layered butterfly card from this month's workshops.  After lots of requests, I am adding photos and links to the products I used this month and last month on these two cards.

  

This month was another simply stamped card with lots of butterflies, dimension and a touch of sparkle and colour.



The inside of the card with a little less decoration so there is room to write a message:




These are the products for both cards:

Flourishes Butterflies and Blossoms - click on the photo for link to where you can purchase and the product details - you might see some other sets which are familiar - I LOVE LOVE LOVE this stamp range!


Kaisercraft Bonjour stamp range - fabulous for making / decorating your own backing papers too..




That's all for today. will be back with more tomorrow.

PS please check my workshop page (along top of blog under the large heading is a list of pages), where you will find details of my next Enniscorthy workshop and my craft clearout sale on 24th August.


Sunday, July 28, 2013

Mo's Digital Pencil - Mother to be

Popping in to share a recent card for a colleague at work - love this image from Mo's Digital pencil which you can find here on Mo's Digital Pencil website. Am thrilled to say a baby boy joined our world around a week after Val received this card for her work colleagues - congrats Val and Mick on your new arrival :), am delighted for you both!



Here is the front of the card - coloured with Faber Castell Polychromos Pencils, and the oval image was inked with scattered straw distress ink while still inside the spellbinder die.
The papers are from Pink Petticoat, and are available in digi - these are the very first digi papers I bought over 4 years ago, wow I can't believe where the time has gone?! You can find them HERE - they are called Spring Wishes.


Finished with ecru coloured Berisford DF satin ribbon and a pearlescent green leaf die cut.




This is the inside - minimal decoration as the papers are so beautiful that it just wouldn't be good to cover them too much!


I have some photos to tidy up, and post and there are a few, so if you pop back over next few days, there will be lots to see :). 
Have neglected the blog for a little while but my favourite season, Christmas, isn't far away so I am getting excited at the prospect of making Christmas cards again and you might see me posting a bit more over the coming weeks!

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Cupcakes anyone?

Just sharing a photo of some of the cupcake gable boxes we made on Saturday in Enniscorthy. I will be making these boxes again in Kilkenny this Saturday 27th July, so if you want to pop along to the class, please contact Marion or me (details on the workshop page of the blog).

Thanks to those crafters willing to share their finished projects - I love all the different borders you opted for!



will pop back after the weekend with more makes 

Friday, July 19, 2013

long time no blogging...

... and apologies from me for not posting in ages! To all the friends and workshop ladies who I have come to know and have passed on their thoughts and kind words during the last few weeks, thanks from the bottom of my heart, they mean so much.

Two months ago, my Mom passed away to be with the angels, unexpectedly, but with little suffering. I was fortunate enough to fly to the UK from Ireland to be with her for a whole day, but the shock of what was to happen has been a lot to take in as it came suddenly. I am thankful for small mercies, that Mom didn't suffer long in hospital because she wouldn't have wanted that, and that I got to spend time with her too even if for a very short time.

Getting back to crafting has been hard going, but mr mojo is back now for the meanwhile and when the mood takes me.  My love of all things crafty, not just papercrafts, but drawing, painting, colouring, crochet, knitting and calligraphy, was instilled in me from a young age by a crafty Mom. I lost count of the number of colouring in books and bumper colouring crayon boxes I was proud to own and play with, the more colours, the bigger the surprise LOL! 

So thanks Mom, those years of scribbles led me to love what I do today, and I will use my spare hours to continue to create things I know you like to see :)

I have a few posts / cards to put on the blog, and will get around to doing these over the coming days, but in the meantime, I have started back with my workshops, so just posting an update for this month.

Marion in the Crafty Bride in Kilkenny wanted me to show some previews for the July workshop, so here is a little snippet. I will be making these projects in the Enniscorthy and Kilkenny workshops in July on 20th and 27th, so if you want to book a place, please contact me or Marion (head over to the workshops tab at the top of the blog for more info).


We will be making:
a gable box which is of course strawberry - themed given the season and big enough for 2 cupcakes!,
young baby and childrens' birthday cards,
punched die cut and embossed floral card and
simple and effective stamped summery card.

July 20th will be in Enniscorthy and Marina or Karl from Cottage Crafts Gorey will be there with the shop.
July 27th will be in Kilkenny at the Craft Bride Wedding studio with Marion Kilbride.

Any questions, just leave me a comment with your contact details (these comments do not automatically publish so your details will not be published).

I will end with a music video. We played this amazing music for the entrance to Mom's funeral service and the words best describe a little of my thoughts and feelings.



Life is for the living, make the most of every day!

Thursday, July 11, 2013

April workshop cards

Hi everyone, as promised here are the June workshop cards I am only getting around to post now. thanks again to all those who came and thanks for being so understanding with my having to change dates etc.

I don't have much time to blog for the foreseeable future, so I will show mainly photos, but if you want to know any more about products used on any cards, email me or leave a blog comment and I can reply.

A large boxed wedding card, measures around 7 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches




 We made our own flowers for this one using Spellbinders' bitty blossom dies



A5 black and white masculine card



The punch used for the border is a Martha Stewart flourish one.



A simple card made with the versatile crafts too Happy birthday folder and any of your little stamps, quick and easy to colour and the same image used inside




Stamping techniques including masking and  and introduction to '3D stamping' using one layer. I will do another project using this technique in a future workshop with more layers, I think its fantastic - decoupage for stampers or stamping for decoupage fans?!







... and last but not least some men's gardening cards with the season that's in it! the images are from Lili of the Valley (the little boy) and from Mo Manning (some of the Mo Manning are in rubber and I am thrilled about that!)



Loved making the faux carrots on these, MS branch punch, orange card, green thick paper and a wood grain embossing folder and hey presto!


  

Have some more to show but that's loads of photos for one post for now :)