Good old Peel Offs!

OK. So I am not a fan of Peel Offs. But I do love Francoise Read's or Magenta's peel offs. They are cute or sophisticated and look amazing in when they come in white and black. This one card I made as part of making a few samples cards for QVC, the kit consists of Francoise's peeloffs, ribbon and mulberry paper. I had a lovely time making the samples!

Again, you can see I took a crap photo of the card. to be honest I do not enjoy that much taking photos of something else than people. I love portraits, there is nothing like capturing peoples beauty with the camera. Taking photos of my projects... BORING! I need to change my attitude respect that, I am even thinking of getting a light tent which probably would help, but I rather spent my money in another lens.

So, I will just post a photo of my lovely husband that I took last Sunday in a BBQ we attended. It was hot!


I edited the photo using Lightroom, a fantastic program by Adobe that makes developing the photos so cool. You can save the presets that will then work in a similar manner to the Actions in Photoshop. I prefer Lightroom to Photoshop just because you can really edit a workload in very little time.

Back to everyday cards

Another Penny Black image. The village I grew up in -Campanet, Mallorca, Spain- has a few fields that in late spring get spotted with beautiful and fragile red poppies. They are such a delicate things! So I could not resist this image from Penny Black.
Again forgive my coloring in.

I just realized I haven't post anything other than card and little explanations for the last few weeks. The thing is that my life is pretty boring, so nothing much to share. Maybe I just should mention how hot it is here today, about 30º C (no idea Fahrenheit!). It is lovely when you know it's going to pass soon as it makes you enjoy the sun and the heat, back in Spain, it is hard to know that for the next two months it is going to be pretty much like this or hotter. For me that is not good!

Maybe I should share that I have been designing new products, new craft designs rather as they are nothing revolutionary. I do enjoy designing stuff so much, whether be cards, layouts, workshops or just papers, die cuts and so on. One of the greatest things is to see the actual thing you designed be used by other crafters, every time I see in a shop or over the internet my messages InCircles -manufactured by Craftwork Cards- I get so happy, so proud that people are enjoying and using something I created.

Too early for Christmas?!

Not for us cardmakers! There are some of us that are really organized and make Christmas cards all year round. Personally, I always leave it to the last minute so I can use the latest season products, ie scrapbook patterned paper that only arrives to the UK in November the earliest so the excitement of the new product makes the whole process even more enjoyable- yes I do love making all the cards that we need to send out.
However, I often get commissions for magazines articles in summer so I think Christmas all year round. So, I have learnt the lesson of stocking my christmas product box all year round. That is how I got this Penny Black Stickers called Christmas Everywhere. They are gourgous and quick and easy for a great look without breaking the bank - The Glitter Pot stocks them here. The message is one of my InCircles and the red heart pin is from Sugar and Spice which stocks an amazing range of loose embeelishments perfect for someone like me that is so picky about colours and shapes and sizes.
By the way, today there is a three hour -14:00-17:00- craft program on QVC dedicated to Christmas Cardmaking. Dawn Bibby is hosting it, I hope that I get to see some of the cards I did for some of the kits last week.

Coloring In

Coloring is something of a love or hate thing for me. I have always opted for rubber stamps that featured solid images. Part of it is that my coloring is not that great. The thing that, although I don't think I do it properly, I enjoy coloring in as I find it relaxing. So, forgive me if the colouring in is not up to your standards.

This is one of my favorite cards at the moment. The blue paper in the background was a left over from a Cuttlebug demo. I used the back to write "Gone for lunch, back in 15 mins." But as I love the blue shade I decided to recycle it

I used for this card Penny Black stamps: Splendor No. 3977H - splendor and salutations
30-014. Making Memories felt button and generic buttons.

And the third Penny Black card

This one was a bit of a miss from the word go. But even though is not perfect -not even the photo is good!- I kind of liked. Reminds me of having fun while making cards, not to worry too much about card perfection but learning during the process.
For this card I used queen anne's lace 3939K and allegro 30-033.

More Penny Black

Following yesterday's post, I kept Thinking Inking and did this other card. Like yesterday I used distress inkpads from Ranger.
Yesterday's card had a message that read " Too Much of a Good Thing is Wonderful" and kind of thought it is absolutely true only if one is able to appreciate it. We often forget all the goodness that surrounds us because we often concentrate in the not-so-good stuff.
For this card I used hillflowers 3938K and the message is from the clear set sentiments 30-025.

Stamping just for fun

One of my favorite card makers, Jennifer McGuire is doing a series of video tutorials, Thinking Inking, on Ranger inks and stamping and invited everyone to participate. I have been watching the tutorials and been very inspired to have a proper play with the inks and some beautiful stamps.

Last week I got a load of Penny Black stamps. I love them, in my opinion, they are some of the best traditional rubber stamps out there. I love their images. And they have stamps to suit every taste! So I decided to use some of them for the Thinking Inking.

For this card, I use the japanese maple 3932K and allegro 30-033.

By the way, yesterday early afternoon I had the delivery of the iPhone. It's so cool! And sending sms is so easy. I used to hate sms and since I had so many minutes included used to by default call rather than sms. But I think that is going to change now!

More demo cards

You can see the estate of the table!

Patterned acetate

I love acetate, but patterned acetate I find difficult to use. So a few months ago, I challenged myself to use some, here you have the result.

More Bo Bunny

This card was part of an article I did using Bo Bunny Papers for Cardmaking and Papercraft. At first this colours didn't do it for me, but then I loved them. The brief was quick cards and that is what I did, almost always do!

Just beacuse

... I haven't post any cards lately!

Father's day

It should be easy to know when it's fathers Day, right? Well think again. I am Spanish and we celebrate Father's day in March, the nineteenth to be exact which is Saint Joseph's day, but then Omar is Canadian and we live in the UK. So we always forget the exact dates.
But I do know that the UK one is coming sometime soon.
PS: after a bit of research I found out that Fathers Day unlike Mother's Day, is the same in the UK as it is in Canada and the States, is the third Sunday of June.

Butterflies, can't live without them!

I always have loved and used flowers, but there is a limit on how many flowers you can use in your cards. Butterflies, well I liked them but now I love them. It seems that I am in Butterfly mode and almost every card I make lately has got one, or more.
I think this is the card that started this phase in my cardmaking. I made it before Christmas last year as part of an article for the now defunct Quick & Crafty magazine. (I miss that mag, it had a lovely feel to it!)
After this card, there was no looking back: butterfly mania is well established in my studio.

Sending Love from Up North

I made this card a long while ago using Bo Bunny papers and was featured in Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine.

Just for you

This little card I made last weekend while demonstrating the Slice at The Craft Barn. I used two cartridges: Noteworthy for the nested shapes and Basics 2 for the Butterfly. I cut the butterfly out of acetate and use the negative as a mask and inked with cut and dry foam and then stamped on it. Then I used the positive acetate on top.

Left overs

Another card done with the left overs that i got after doing a Cuttlebug demo, but I do like it!

Basic Grey Lime Rickey stamps and papers.

A great day out and more Rosettes

Yesterday I had a fabulous time demonstrating the Slice at Wickford Hobbies & Crafts . I had already met John and Rene before at a trade event and already thought they were very nice people, and I wasn't wrong and the rest of team also were a joy to work with. The shop is a true Alladins cave for crafters. And they had the new large 3.5" Woodware punches, which are absolutely faboulous!

Then, on my way home I stopped at Sugar and Spice which a lovely shop very near by. Aren't South Essex crafters lucky? In that area they have got such a pick of top scrapbooking and crafting shops! apart from the mentioned ones there is Artbase, one of my old favourites, and Imagine that. And the great thing about all this shops is that they all are and feel very different, all of them stocking some different products from the next and making necessary to visit them all andspend loads of money in each and every one of them! Also, all the owners of the shops are nice people and I do enjoy seeing them and chatting, just because I love chatting about crafts!

I really, really had a fab time.

In other news, was I glad that Diversity won last night Britain's got talent? Oh yes! I love underdogs wining but also as much as I like Susan Boyle I always thought she was way over hyped. I mean, she has a beautiful voice and she knows how sing well, but only the audition was that amazing and most of it because it was unexpected from her. In the other hand, I thought that a really diverse group of young lads that train really hard to dance is a very good example for everyone. And the choreography was just amazing, it was one of those few times that an act gets better and better as the competition progresses.

And by they way, es, I know, you are tired of rosettes! But I just want to explore all possibilities on how to make them. This one was done with the Slice using Porcelain papers, which I enjoyed making.
The flower pattern has an empty center hence the use of a bigger circle for it.

Maybe I am getting boring...

With more Slice cards, this one done with Wisteria papers for today's demo at Wickford Crafts.

Gift for a friend

The other day I went to my kind-of-local WHSmith to grab the UK edition of Cards and Scrapbook Trends. To be honest, I try to avoid the place as it is a large shop with a very nice stationery section that makes me to spend money.
Well, they did have the two magazines I was after, but they also stock this lovely new line of boxes, files and so much more that is so lovely that I immediately thought of Julie Hickey. So, I had to buy it for her.
To accompany the box -which is meant for photos but I think will make a lovely crafty storage- I made a simple card matching the colours using a stamp from Delish Designs.

Marrakech

You know I love Basic Grey, right? Marrakesh was one of the lines they released last Winter CHA. I love the city (and the country, Morocco) so I was intrigued when I heard there was a line with this name. The colors and some patterns certainly do it justice. Maybe not so much the elephants, but I can live with them, who knows I may go to India and be able to use them!

This is a demo card again. I was using die cutting machines and one of the shapes was the heart (combo set). The blue piece was a left over that I used to show how well the clear Basic Grey Stamps do work with Versafine inks -Blue Lagoon in this case. Because, I do think that clear stamps sometimes are a bit temparemental with certain inks, or the other way round, who knows. So i use most of the time the ones I know they work well, which are Brilliance, Archival and the mentioned VersaFine.

And that line of red crystals? Well, I usually don't use that much bling but I had those left over from one of the bling packs in which they are all linked in strips. So I decided to use them all in this card.

Another Impressabilities

For this card I embossed the Snowflake Impressabilities using a silver shade of Brilliance Ink on it. It is more pearlescent in real life!
I know that the flower in the center does not quite match the snowflake background, but as i did this card at a demo sometimes I needed to improvise.
You can find all the products at Crafts U Love.

More Slice cards

All the shapes here are cut using the Slice Basics Cartridge. I did this card as a part of my work for Dawn Bibby, when she did the TSV last friday at QVC.

Apertures

Do you like to create apertures in your cards or layouts? The Slice is the Best for apertures. Is so easy! You can position the slice anywhere you want it and make an aperture.
I made two apertures one in the paper and then one in the card, then I mount them on top of each other.

When little mistakes happen

Or when little light is no good for cardmaking.
Why? Because I was really happy with this card until I took this photo and realized that there were some lettering under the inked scalloped edge! I guess I thought the ink was opaque enough to cover the letters, and so it looked under the bad light of my studio. But it wasn't, so lesson learned: put more light in the studio.
By the way I solved the situation by creating another border also scalloped in white and juts glue it over the top of the bad one. Unfortunately I have no photos of the end result.

More Rosettes

Last Saturday while at Crafts U Love I created a couple of cards that I was quite pleased with. And that makes the blog just because, if you read the post on that day, realize that I usually not that happy how the cards I end up after a day of demos. That is why i like to make a few samples before the demo that are going to be the real samples. Making beautiful cards during demos is harder just because I try to show the technique or product rather than the design aspect of cardmaking.
But this lovely paper from Cosmo Cricket made me want to create a simple card with a big rosette in the middle, bare in mind that the size of the folded card is 6 x 6".

More flowers

This is part two of two of the flowers I made for last week demo at Crafts U Love using just the circle nestabilities, Wisteria papers and some extras.

Yesterday I got to spend the day crafting at a trade event organized by Delish Designs UK with my friend Julie. I had a fantastic time just crafting without the pressure of being the person in charge. The Delish stuff is gorgeous and Debbie the tutor was fabulous. If you ever get the chance to do one of their retreats I think you should try them.

Impressabilities

I have always loved the look of letterpress, you know the really expensive way of printing in which the ink on the pattern is debossed?

Well, one of the ways to achieve a similar effect is using a technique I always demonstrate with Cuttlebug embossing folders by inking them up using a pigment pad. The effect is good but sometimes the ink is not even and therefore the look is more of the distressed kind.

Impressabilities are an embossing stencil designed to work with the die cutting machines as they have a very intricate patterned, which would take ages to do if you tried to emboss with a light box. With the Impressabilities you get a soft embossing effect, nothing like the deep impressions that Cuttlebug embossing folders give you, yet you get a much cleaner letterpress effect if you ink them. They work best with rich pigment inks such as Brilliance and Versafine. For this card I used Red Rocket Brilliance pad on to the Paisley Impressabilities.

Other items used: Nestabilities (Oval petite, Scallop Oval petite); Basic Grey stamp (Paisley Flower); Hero Arts stamp (All Occasion Messages).
You can buy all the items from Crafts U Love here.

Nestabilities

Yesterday I was demonstrating the circle Nestabilities at Crafts U Love.
If you have followed this blog for a while you will know that I am a great admirer of many paper crafters, one of which is Jane Gill. Jane does the most wonderful flowers using punches by Woodware.
Well, Jane inspired me to create flowers out of circle nestabilities using in particular the scalloped edged ones but setting myself the challenge of only using dies from the circular shapes.
Once I started there was no stopping me and tried all sorts of different combinations with different colours, sizes...

And these are the different flowers I came up with:


They may not be up Jane's standards but I was pretty pleased for my usual quick and easy self!

The backgroung is just a rectangle of white foam board cover with Wisteria (Basic Grey) papers so that I could display the flowers with pearl pins.

By the way you can get all the nestabilities here at Crafts U Love as well as the lovely Wisteria papers here.

Making cards while demonstrating

Making pretty cards while demonstrating is not an easy job, that is why I admire those demonstrators that keep coming up with faboulous cards while showing off how to do the lastest technique or products, Julie Hickey comes to mind as the expert to achieve that, but there are many more.

Me, I still finding it challenging to show how the die cutting machines work and make pretty cards. This one card I made the other weekend while demoing and was pretty excited that came out all right. Actually it was a left over that I die cut the heart out and reuse the negative space for a blank card. The I use Basic Grey stamps and Hero Arts message, ribbon and unusually large amounts of bling.

I shall see how I get on today demonstrating at Crafts U Love!

Using left Die cutting Overs

To create the flower in the centre. It is actually from a Sizzix die that I showed you yesterday.
This one was part of the class taught at The Glitter Pot last Friday.

Die cutting

I love die cuts, and when they are string robust dies, such as Sizzix ones, my love grows, becuase they became a really versatile tool. Using this Bigz die you can make lovely shaped card that zig zags and every single page is different.


This is side A.


This is side B, with a space to write the message, because without it would not be much of a card!
So, this is the sort of thing that I teach at my die cutting classes at The Glitter Pot, dawn Bibbys Design Studio or wherever I am next!

Inspiration

One of the reasons I love to demonstrate at big demo weekends is because like everyone else attending as a customer I get to see what other demonstrators do and learn and be inspired by them. Last weekend at The Glitter Pot was no exception. Stamping Caz taught me how to do a cool thing with the Cuttlebug folders that I had trying to learn but very lazy to actually research it. Francoise Read showed me her latest release of stamps and I could not resist one set, the one that contains the image above. Gaynor was doing lovely stamping and decoupage technique, she makes so beautiful. So I combined what I learnt from the three of them to create Omar's Birthday card (last Tuesday).
Yes, you may think it is a girly card, but he seem to be very pleased with it since I Wasabi seems to be in the card!

Cuttlebug

Often I make the cards for a class or a demo just the day before. You see, I started teaching cardmaking while I was working at the same shop. That meant that I could choose what to use the day before to make sure that we had enough stock for the attendees. Also, it doesn't help that I do have the tendency to leave everything for the last minute.
However, lately I have been quite good at planing my classes and demos and did this one about two weeks ago for the class last week at The Glitter Pot. I used Pebbles papers, Cuttlebug embossing folders and Nestabilities large rectangle scallop die -for the rosette-.
PS: Studio Calico has this lovely post on how to make the rossette. I did learn the how to somewhere else, Making Memories blog I think but not sure.

Some die cutting

One of my favourite classes to design and teach is Die cutting. Everytime I try to come out with some different. This one was the embossing + inkpads used in the green dots border and the butterflies. It is softer look, it feels like letterpress.
All materials are available from The Glitter Pot (Pebbles papers, Cuttlebug: Butterfly combo set, Just my Type embossing border, Messages in circles Birthday).

For the real chocoholic

So last week I showed you how I used the little wraps. Well, now it is time for the large one. I buy chocolate in large quantities, little bars are only all right for the handbag.
This one holds a real size chocolate bar, so I used one of the pages of the Craftwork Cards 8 x 8 album which is already cut in the same shape as the little wraps. This one I made for Leonie Pujol, who really makes life sweeter as she is a true sweetie.

Just because...

Wisteria papers are so beautiful...

Happy Birthday Omar

... I know it's not a birthday card, but it has a flower and green. Life it is not perfect, as Omar well knows!

Actually, this card was the one I gave him on Saturday for our wedding anniversary, that I made using lovely vintage My Minds Eye papers, Bazzill flower and Cricut (Home decor cartridge).

Flower Patch

Flower patch is one of this collections of papers that on first look I didn't love, however they did grow on me big time. Now, I love the pastel colors, the patterns...
I did this card last week for the demo weekend as it uses Cuttlebug embossing folders and I used the 8 x 8 Flower Patch (which is made by Making Memories).

Using bits and pieces

When I have a big project to do such as an article or a workshop, I end up with loads of tiny and not so tiny pieces of papers. The pity is that they end up in plastic bag forgotten for years, and when I eventually find them, the colours or patterns do not appeal to me anymore.
So, now that I am aware of that, I make myself use as much as possible leftovers within the week. That is how I made this card, with bits and pieces!

LOVE

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary. Well actually, this is not the wedding we celebrate, as we celebrate the 19th of July which was the proper family celebration. Yes, I have got married four times, all four to the same man!
Anyway, Happy anniversary Omar!

Wraps to wrap

My love for the Craftwork Cards Wraps is well established in this blog. But I had never use them before to actually wrap something else than card, which can be done in amazing ways as seen in Julie's blog. By the way, Julie Hickey is the person behind the wraps, she came up with the idea and designed them, not only she is a great friend but also a card making genius.

So, I wanted to give some friends a little sweet present so I made two chocolate wraps, one for her and one for him. Since his birthday was recently, I used an old stamp with the Happy Belated Birthday on, and since there was no apparent reason for hers, I decided to go for the Just Because.

The white foiled papers are also from Craftwork cards, the flowers are Prima.

The Glitter Pot big demo day

This weekend I will be demonstrating at The Glitter Pot's Spring Spectacular. If you can make it, really you should come. Some of the best card designers in the country (maybe in the world!) like Jane Gill and Julie Hickey will be there.
This is one of the cards I have done for the demo, using the lovely Wisteria papers (Basic Grey) and Cuttlebug embossing folders and dies.
For more info, click here.