I wanted to make something, but I didn't want to have to think about it too hard. I didn't want to have to contemplate colour blends or even basic palettes. So I reached for a handmade background from my stash — a nice mottled blue-green piece — and a flower stencil. Roses are red: grab… Continue reading Stencilled roses
This is a variation on a card I made last year. I learned my lesson and, this time, I checked whether mum wanted me to make a card for her to give to her brother before starting work on it. She did want one and, as last year's candle card ended up being repurposed, I… Continue reading Candles and snowflakes
I keep mentally referring to the base layer of this card as the blue masterboard. It's actually purple and green, but that just feels a bit long-winded 🙂 So, pretty much the same procedure as for the red card with the fairy lights. Different colour background, different stamp and different patterned border, but otherwise... The… Continue reading Candle on blue
This was a good way of using up lots of small pieces of vaguely Christmassy patterned paper; however, although it’s quite a simple design, it did take quite a while to make these. Creating the card bases was quick, they just needed to be run through the Big Shot in an embossing folder. Creating the… Continue reading Paper-pieced presents
I was in the mood for two things: using my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers — hereafter known as ziggies for the sake of brevity — and doing a bit of heat embossing. After a couple of busy days creating the mouse at the lake card, I had thought that I would keep that… Continue reading In bloom
This blog post is a little bit different from my usual card write-ups. Towards the end of last year Create A Smile put out a call for card tutorials for a winter mini-magazine they were planning. I made a card, wrote it up and sent it in and then, I guess, life happened and the… Continue reading Penguins tag
The bonus lessons for the wrap-up day of the Clear and Sheer card class were on shaker cards. I’ve made a few shaker cards in the past, but I’ve always used acetate for them; it had never occurred to me to use vellum, so I had to give it a go. And I really like… Continue reading Vellum shaker
I had intended to make more cards with this set, but I ended up not needing to. It will definitely get used for some birthday cards though (and there’s always next Christmas)… Last year my mum asked me to make a card for her to give to her brother — he always gets her cards… Continue reading Christmas: Candles over snow flurry
A friend of ours really doesn’t do Christmas, but I hate to leave him off the Christmas card list. This year I was inspired to make him a solstice card instead, as celebrating the passing of the shortest day of the year is far more appropriate. Supplies: stamps: Create A Smile - snowflake whispers Lawn… Continue reading Solstice card
This card was created on 4th November; day 4 of The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge. I don’t have a lot of full-size background stamps, but I just had to pick up these balloons from Create A Smile. For some reason my brain came up with the bright idea of colouring it and then… Continue reading Thanks: Balloons
After winning Create A Smile’s “blue” challenge in with my very blue light-up ocean card, I was asked to be a Guest Designer for October’s challenge. The theme for this month is “embellish”. Now, embellishments are normally the last thing I think about when making a card, usually in a “what else does this card… Continue reading Embellish!
I had a load of ideas for different ways to interpret the “circle” theme for this month’s Create A Smile challenge, but in the end I decided to do something a bit different and make a card with no stamping at all. A bit of an odd choice when coming up with a design for… Continue reading Christmas: Sequin baubles
Another month, another Create A Smile challenge. This time the codeword is “blue” and, rather than just make the focus of my card blue, I decided to limit my palette to just blues and blue-greens and make the whole card blue. There is a bit of grey in there, but even that is a cool… Continue reading Deep blue sea (with lights)
Create A Smile is celebrating its second birthday and this month’s challenge is, fittingly, to create a birthday card. That gave me a really good reason to finally ink up the crokisses stamp set, which I absolutely love, but haven’t got around to actually using yet… I also decided that a shaker card would work… Continue reading Birthday: Crocuses
Create A Smile have just launched their monthly challenge and, being a lover of their stamps (and stencils and embellishments and kits and…), I just had to join in. The theme this month is “favourite” so for this card I went with my favourite colouring medium: Copic markers (though I do love the cute snails… Continue reading Happy mail: Snails
Crafty Rat 