'Thriller' zombie card

I had a shopping trip to Lincoln on Monday, and although I was very disappointed at the lack of shoes and nice clothes, I did get 2 very fabulous books from Waterstones' halloween range! They both gave me some great card inspiration.

One of them is a book called 'Zombie Felties' and gives you templates for making your own zombie soft toys. The templates are, of course, also perfect for using with paper & card. My favourite design is a Michael Jackson 'thriller' zombie, so I used this as my inspiration for my first zombie card.

The backing paper came from 12x12 sheet made up of 4 6x6 panels and was called 'Thriller' by Rusty Pickle. Both zombie characters were made using the templates from the book and a collection of scrap card pieces, beads, sequins and some Ikea string coloured with a black promarker. I also used my new promarker 'fine-tips' for the first time today to add detail to my zombies and it worked really well.

On a recent visit to Hobbycraft, I picked up a halloween 'confetti' bag consisting of embossed and die-cut skulls and ravens. They were just 99p for a large bag and the raven added a perfect spooky touch, sitting on top of the gravestone.

When it came to putting the topper onto the card, I chose to use an 8x8 scalloped card and added the star stamping just to create that extra bit of detail. I used a 'black soot' distress ink to keep that vintage/gothic type of look.

Cute nativity card

This is one of my latest cards ready for the festive season! This card brings together a selection of products both old and new, but all fabulous of course!

I started with the topper idea and the background design is from a Joanna Sheen 'Messy Rabbit' paper pad bought from the NEC craft show a few years ago. The nativity scene toppers are cut from the 'Winter Frolic' cricut cartridge. I have previously used a cricut 'Paper Doll' cartridge to create nativity scenes but these ones have a cuter feel, which I really like. I've had the cartridge a while but this is the first time I've used it. It was a purchase from Create & Craft with my £10 club members discount from joining so was a good price. The toppers were easy to construct although you did have to cut some pieces that you didn't actually need to get the colours right, especially on my 'Joseph'.

 

I mounted the topper element onto some gold, matte, mirror card to provide some stability for the easel style card. The final aspect was to create the barrier to stop the card from closing and I really wanted to use a Christmas message peel-off by Little Claire designs bought from the Lincoln Craft show. I wanted to use the peel-off saying 'Jesus is the Reason for the Season' to fit with the nativity card but I only had it in silver. THANK GOD FOR PRO-MARKERS!!! I used my new 'indigo' promarker to colour the peel-off and then cut a circle mat, in the same gold mirror card as the topper mat, to mount it onto.

It was a little fiddly, placing the central elements back into the peel-off but a good pokey tool & a steady hand saved the day!

Floral cards

These are 2 floral themed cards that I made for some people I work with. I am in charge of providing the birthday cards for the staff birthdays and I really enjoy trying to make something for a specific person, thinking about what they will like best.

The card on the left was inspired by the background paper which is a 12x12 by Cosmo Cricket that I got from Sir Stampalot in Peterborough. After looking at the shape of the flowers on the paper, I knew that I had some white fabric flowers in that shape (I think that they came from Wilko's in their home decoration range- I tend to get them in their bargain section when they change colour themes as the season changes). I found a selection of pro-markers that matched the colours of the background paper and then coloured the edges and centres of the flowers to match the background. I then used some papermania brads as the centres of the flowers, and glued them onto the card in a L shape.

The card on the right gave me the perfect excuse to use my new 'Flower Shoppe' cricut cartridge, bought from Oyster Stamps at the Lincoln Showground, Sincerely Yours show, the other weekend. The lady that this card is for, is what I would describe as 'edgy' (tatoos, red hair) and I wanted to make something feminine but a little bit different too. I found some 12x12 papers that I have had for a while, originally bought for a Take That scrapbook before I changed my mind, that had a red, white & blue colour palette with a stars design. I used one of these papers for the background of the card, mounting it onto white, and then used the other parts to cut out the flowers. I also used a cream with navy stripes paper, as I felt this would add an unusual touch. The Flower Shoppe cartridge allows you to cut 4 layers for each flower design but I only used 2 layers for each of the flowers at the base of the card. Papermania & HOTP brads were used for the flower centres, alongside a metal flower charm on the largest design. The flower in the top, right hand corner, of the card was made from one of the Flower Shoppe centres. I rolled the paper strip, glueing it at the beginning and end, and then when dry, squashing the edges to show the pattern. A large red gem was added to the centre to complete the look.

'Bling' 21st Birthday card

This is a card that I was commissioned to make for someone I work with, for her daughter's 21st birthday. The brief was simply 'Blingy' and maybe 'pinky' but she wasn't looking for anything flowery or themed in that way.

I started with a plain black card that came from Papermill, which I think provides a contemporary look to the finished card.

I instantly knew that I wanted to use the heart mat that came from a Kanban kit sold on QVC. It is a kit they sold as a summer surprise, so p&p was free, and was a serious bargain (even without the free p&p, it's well worth buying though). The kit contains 96 sheets of die cut mats in various shapes e.g. circles, squares, hearts, flowers and decorative edged mats too. They come in black, white, cream, red, lilac, blue and pink and are foiled with gold & silver. Some of the black mats are also printed with a matte white design. There are at least 6 different mats on each sheet and they are designed to go with the plain cardstock mats that Kanban produce. I personally think that some of them are far too nice to cover up such as the foiled heart I used on this card. The kit worked out to be 20p per sheet of die-cuts which I think is exceptional value.

To create the 'bling' 21 in the middle of the heart, I started by trying to form a good shape with the plain stones but did struggle slightly. I ended up looking through my stash of number peel-offs and finding some that were the perfect size. I carefully cut round the peel-off waste to create a stencil and then stuck this to the foiled heart to provide a guide. The gem stones were too wide to fit in the stencil gap so I had to draw the outline and then remove the peel-off, but it worked well. The stones were a clear diamond gem, so I used a 'hot pink' promarker to colour them. The easiest way to do this was to put a bit of blu-tack on the end of my pokey tool and then use this to hold the gem as I coloured it.

Beyond the heart, I didn't really know what else I wanted to put on the card, so spent a while looking through my paper stash. I couldn't find anything that was really what I wanted (craft room full of stuff but never got what I want!) and ended up looking through my stencil collection. The swirly stencil seemed like a good fit and had spots that I envisaged holding more gems in the hot pink colour. I didn't have any glitter that was a close match so decided to use the turquoise colour for contrast instead. I used a thin, ballpoint, sakura glue pen, through the stencil, and then glittered it. While waiting for the glue to dry, I coloured some papermania clear self-adhesive gems, to match the sizes of the dots in the stencil, and then applied these when the glue was dry.

The final aspect was to use some 3-d foam (I mainly use the 'Poundland special' where you get a roll and sheets of 3d foam for just £1. Large-ish squares so you need to cut it, but a definite money saver!) to mount the heart at the top of the card. I positioned it so that it, ever so slightly, overlapped the edge of the base card.

Sincerely Yours show, Lincoln

Last Sunday, I visited the Lincolnshire Showground, Lincoln for the twice yearly Sincerely Yours papercrafts show. All in all, it was a really good event and the third time I have been to one. There are around 20 different suppliers at each event and they offer a wide range of products between them. Some of the companies are local and others from further afield. There were also some good bargains to be had! Pre-booked tickets cost just £3 (p+p free) and include free tea & coffee all day. There was a good selection of stalls selling a wide range of stamp styles as well as inks, stickles, stencils & papers.

My favourite purchase was a new cricut cartridge from the Oyster Stamps http://www.oysterstamps.co.uk/ stand. It is called Flower Shoppe and is a cricut lite cartridge. It cost £25 and cuts out a wide range of beautiful flowers with instructions on how to 3d them. As soon as I find the time to make a card using it then I will, of course, post it here!

Top bargain most definitely came from the http://www.annamariedesigns.com/ stand and their beautiful printable pearlescent card. I have been commisioned to make some wedding invites and wanted to use some white pearlescent for the base card. They were selling packs of 30 sheets and you could buy 5 packs for £10! The best part was that you could mix and match with other products such as envelopes, card blanks & a large pack of gloss card, which I plan to use with my alcohol inks.

I got some new pastel colours of cosmic shimmer watercolour paints to add to the others I already have and some lovely new card candi in a metallic turquoise & also a silver holographic!!! 10 new promarker colours were also added to my crafting stash as well as a very nice Hunkydory Christmas kit that is shades of purple as well as silver and black and is gorgeous!

Lots of new things to play with and not a lot of time at the moment but it's soon half term so hopefully plenty of time to craft then and plenty of opportunites to show the world what I've been creating!

The Craft Outlet, Springfields, Spalding

I visited the brand new craft shop that has opened at the Springfields outlet shopping centre in Spalding, Lincolnshire today and was overall pleasantly surprised.

The store is situated right at the bottom of the outlet and could be missed if you're not careful. It is actually nearer to the 'Festival Gardens' and 'Play Barn'. It is a large store that has taken over the space previously used as a Fens visitor centre and as well as the craft shop, there is a cafe.

The large posters in the window display slogans of 'up to 70% off' and the prices definitely reflect this. They had already sold out of a few things when I visited today, after only opening yesterday, so I think it's one of those places that you have to visit every couple of weeks to not miss out on anything...

My initial thoughts on entering the shop were:-
1- "ooh this is a bit like paper mill" (lots of different papers and cards stocked in a pick & mix style)
2- "look at that! look at that! look at that!" (as I spotted all the exciting things)
3- *CALM!* (as I realised that I had raced round the shop twice in the first 5 minutes but hadn't actually looked at anything!)

I'll start with the card-
lots of racks (a la paper mill) with various colours of paper & cardstock. Wide range of printable pearlescent papers, pearlescent card, plain colour card, white card & a range of recycled cardstock in really nice muted colours. There are prices for individual sheets e.g. printable peralescent paper 10p per sheet but it's mostly sold by weight. I asked for an idea of how much it would cost but wasn't given a definitive answer. I ended up buying 15 sheets of the printable pearlescent paper (in a beautiful purple colour) & 1 sheet of plain purple cardstock as a bit of a test and that weighed in at about 100g and cost me £1.02.

They also currently stock a selection of ex-QVC kits (one of which had already sold out) including a large stack of K&Co papers that retailed on QVC for almost £40 and they were selling them for £10. It seems that the QVC stuff will be something that they regularly stock.

There was a wide selection of both wooden backed and clear rubber stamps with some sheets containing around 5 clear stamps for as little as £1.99. There was a small selection of 12x12 papers all at well reduced prices e.g. RRP £1.25, their price 29p plus extra discount if  you bought in bulk. There were also peel-offs, ink pads, embossing powders, K&Co matstacks and toppers all at discounted prices.

They also stock a wide selection of wool in a range of colours as well as general sewing supplies such as needles. There were also some home decoration products such as clocks and boxes that you could customise.

The only negative aspects were the lack of clarity in the pricing of the card/paper (although I'm assuming that the prices quoted per sheet are always more expensive than the actual weight price) and one of the members of staff (I'm assuming the manager) who seemed to think he was Gods gift to crafting and  unlike many helpful craft shop retailers, spoke to me as if I was a bit thick. He gave me a full explanation of the Italian paper printing process, including the fact that the mill runs on hydroelectricity, when I asked the simple (!) question of whether or not they would always have the same card or if the stock/colours would change?

Definitely worth a visit and a welcome addition to the local area. In the interests of blogging(!), I will visit again and keep updating how/when their stock changes. Hopefully lots & often!!!

Busy weekend ahead!

This next weekend is very much going to be a crafty one so i'll have lots to report next week!

A new craft shop is opening, this Friday, at the Springfields outlet shopping centre in Spalding. I will pop in and have a look on Saturday and then report back.

On Sunday there is a craft fair at the Lincolnshire Showground so after a visit to that, a quick look round The Range in Lincoln too, I think!

Take That scrapbook pages- Sgt. Pepper

This is the latest page of my album celebrating the wonderful Take That 'progress' tour from June 2011. This page is acting as the link between the previous 'Shine' pages and the next section of Robbie's solo part. The background cardstock is from a dcwv 12x12 stack called 'paper lace' which is full of pinks, greys, blacks & turquoises and is really my style. I chose the background as I felt it fitted well with the Alice in Wonderland style of the second photo. To keep the link with the previous page, I mounted the photos onto the same pattern paper but in the bright pink version. I really wanted to place the photos centrally which meant that I couldn't continue my theme of the journalling being in the shape of the Take That symbol. I decided instead to simply use a bright pink Sakura jelly roll pen to place the journalling around the edge of the page. It has links to the previous pages but also introduces a new colour scheme that I can continue into the next pages.

Only 56 more pages to go!!!