Hardwood, Petite Petals & Gorgeous Grunge.....

....again. Can you tell I love these stamps!

This one measures 21cm x 7cm, slimmer than the last one. I did the same cutting 2 pieces of card and scoring the top piece and sticking together, but this time I punched 2 holes and tied ribbon through them at the side.

Top left photo is the inside of the card and the envelope and bottom right is the flap of the envelope.

Colours are Pink Pirouette and Strawberry Slush.

Grid paper

I have a basket of scrap paper near me to use to stamp onto when you first ink a stamp and to test images colours etc. I have seen the grid paper in Stampin Up catalogue but thought I didn't need it, using scrap paper was fine.

How wrong was I. I saw Trish using hers and decided I would get some myself and am so pleased I did.
The paper seems to have a coating on it and is smooth & strong. The grid lines are useful for lining up card straight and using as a guide when stamping.

I now have a sheet permanently on my craft matt that I work on. It is double sided and I turn it round too and as you can see I have well and truly used it ( the other side is the same) I got mine in February and this is the only sheet I have used! 
Think it's time to have a fresh one, but there are 100 sheets in a pad so will keep me going for a while LOL

Mini Sandwich boxes

I made these mini sandwich boxes for Easter,birthday and thank you little gifts. 

They all have chocolate eggs inside but you could fill with whatever you wanted for any occasion. They would be good at Christmas.

They open by pulling the top down, they are perforated each side of the window, so once they're open you can't seal it back up - what a good excuse to eat all the contents!

They were designed by Tanya Bell an Australian Stampin Up demonstrator. 

I was going to work it out myself as she was selling the instructions, but when I converted the currency and realised the cost was only £1.47 I thought it wasn't worth the effort! 

So, I bought the instructions. They came in an e-mail, the instructions are well written and include photo's, definitely worth the money. There is also links to videos showing her make it, though these are time limited.

Here is a link to the page on her blog showing her boxes

http://stampingt.com.au/blog/?p=19148

Have a lovely weekend x

Birthday card for our niece....

..Angela whose birthday it is today, hope it arrived in time!

This is the first time I have attempted doing a collage of photo's using Picassa. James showed me a week or so ago how to do it and after a bit of trial and error I've managed to do one! Think I will have to try this for a scrapbook page.

Let me know if you prefer this and I will take more close up photo's to include.

Anyway the card uses Hardwood stamp, Petite Petals, Gorgeous Grunge and Banner Blast my favourites at the moment.

The Happy Birthday is from Perfectly Penned and the smaller message is Bring on the Cake.

Colours are Crumb Cake, Bermuda Bay & Coastal Cabanna.

The top right photo is the inside of the card just hand drawn lines which I repeated on the front on the envelope. I also stamped the flap of the envelope.

Happy Easter...

...to you all, hope you are enjoying the easter break whatever you might be doing.

I managed some gardening yesterday now it's warmer - and my legs are telling me I did some gardening too! 

I am sharing a card I made for my Dad's birthday last Friday. For the first time I used the Label Pop N Cuts card base and label Pop N Cuts insert. Next time I will allow myself more time to decorate the front of the card too!

Side view showing the "pop" cut

Birthday tags

It was Scrapaholix club's 9th Birthday on the 5th April and I put together a goody bag for each member - all 34 lovely ladies!!!

I made a tag for each bag and as the bag was quite tall it had to be something in proportion. 

This is what I like about the tag topper punch you can make them as long as your card allows and when you have a lot to do it makes it quick to make your base tag.

I made these the width of an A4 sheet of card.

I used the hardwood stamp for the background and the greeting is from chalk talk.

Petite Petals flowers and the enjoy word is from Simply Celebrate

Egg boxes........

I found a video by Sandy McIver showing how to make a cute holder for a small egg. 

There are lots of similar ones and boxes using the scallop tag topper punch, but I liked the addition of the little base to hold the egg. I did make mine a little longer and will give you the instructions and measurements but here is the video link to see the ones she made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbWZJsIflOk

Don't you just love spring colours - these are from the subtles collections from Stampin Up, 

Pear Pizazz, Pool Party, Blushing Bride, So Saffron, Wisteria Wonder, Marina Mist.

For the main box a piece of card 2" x 8" scored at 3 1/4" & 4 3/4"  

For the base  a piece of card 2 1/2" x 3" scored at 1/4" & 1/2" on each side.

Punch each end of the 2" x 8" card with the scallop tag topper punch or use a framelit / nestability to shape the top or draw your own shape and cut with scissors and punch a hole.

The base piece  - cut square from each corner. On the back draw a diagonal line from each corner with a pencil and use 1" circle punch to cut out circle in the centre using the pencil lines as a guide. If you are using a different egg, check the size hole you need to fit your egg.

Fold along the scored lines and then stick to the card strip in between the scored lines.

I added a 3d foam pad inside the hole to help hold the egg. I also stuck each flap to the side of the base, but you don't have to.

Decorate the front however you want. If you are going to stamp onto the front of the card strip don't forget to do this before adding the base!

I chose to stamp onto vanilla card, punched and cut out pieces to stick onto the front. 

It depends what stamps you have and the look you want.

I've used dotted frame from Fitting Occasion and curly label punch. The dots are from Happy Watercolour from the new spring catalogue. The larger egg is from Easter blossoms and the small one is from Spring Sampler, both retired. Greeting from Teeny Tiny Wishes.

Fasten with ribbon.

Side view showing the egg nestled in it the base 

I hope you've enjoyed todays instalment that I've scheduled as I'm away for the weekend in the motorhome and guess what - I've taken more of these to assemble whilst I'm away as well as some knitting :)

Check back Sunday for another scheduled post

Lynn x

Sewing case

I have been doing a bit of sewing lately and after seeing a lovely sewing case on Pinterest decided I was going to make one as it would be useful to take with me in the motorhome.
The pin didn't have instructions how to make it, so I drew my own pattern and changed some things and bought some lovely material from Stockton market. 

I then decided I would make one for my mam for Mothers day, so cut the base for 2.

I was finishing it off on the morning of Mothers day, and I shall say there was blood (some of which I had to rub off the material when the wrong end of the needle kept digging in my finger) & sweat went into it! I must find my thimble - and make a pocket for one when I make mine!

I was really pleased how it turned out, and more importantly mam loved it.

I've never made binding, so I found a video on you tube. Next time I will make it a bit wider so I can machine top stitch, I had to hand stitch this to be able to pull it over the material.

Now I just need to get mine made!

Thank you tag

I made this as a tag but you can use the same technique for a card. It was inspired by one of the swaps I got at convention.

I used a circle framelit /punch, but you can use any shape to cut an aperture in a piece of card. This was used as a mask to cover the white card and means the stamped background image is in the shape of your aperture. I used the dictionary stamp.
Leaving the aperture in place I then used a sponge to apply ink around the edges, creating the darker edges.
You can then stamp any image you want on top of your background, using the mask if you don't want any of the image outside the circle. This flower stamp is Reason to Smile (retired)