You should read this book!

A few weeks ago, I made a Dr. Seuss inspired canvas for my school library. This week, I've been making a pin board that will also go in the library and be somewhere for the children to recommend books that they've enjoyed to everyone else. It took ages as the Cricut was playing up a bit but I'm pleased with the final result- now it's done!

I started with a £2 cork pin board from QD which I painted bright yellow using the remains of an emulsion tester pot. All of the letters and images that I have used are from the Cricut Design Space subscription and I made them using the print and cut feature so that I didn't have to layer up lots of different pieces of card. I simply attached the letters and the images around the board with pva glue and then used some DoCrafts Gorjuss baker's twine to make the hanging string.

I am entering this project into the following challenges:-
Crafty Catz 'song title to match image' 12.3 (Paperback Writer by the Beatles)
Crafty Boots 'not a card' 15.3
Clear it out 'anything goes' 10.3
Papertake Weekly 'anything goes' 10.3
Catch the Bug 'anything goes' 14.3

Quoth the Raven

I always love to buy Halloween themed papers (esp. DCWV) but here in the UK we rarely give cards for Halloween. This means that I have lots of beautiful papers I rarely use and only one friend that would really appreciate a card of a gothic style. When I saw the Graph'It challenge for this week, it gave me a great excuse to use them.

I again started with an 8x8 white card blank. I cut down a piece of DCWV 'Midnight Spell' 8x8 paper to fit the card and then stamped around the edge of it with my Imkadinkado gears system and a new branch stamp from a set called 'Halloween'. I stamped with a versamark ink and then embossed it with a black glitter embossing powder. It is difficult to see in the photograph but in real life adds an extra dimension because the printed paper is flat black. I chose a Saturated Canary digi stamp and coloured it using my promarkers. I trimmed it leaving a small white border and mounted this onto the card. I used a star punch with some black glitter paper to make the embellishments for the card and then wrapped some black & white bakers twine around the edge of the card, adding the skull bead.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:-
Smudgy Antics 'embellishments'
Creative Inspirations 'anything goes'
Paper Shelter 'sun, moon or stars'
Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenges 'anything goes'
Cute Card Thursday 'hip to be square'
Graph'It 'Halloween colours'
Daring Cardmakers 'signature style' (8x8 square card, CAS, stars)

New Gorjuss girls stamps, papers, buttons, twine... ;-)

Yesterday, I went to The Range to go and have a look at the new DoCrafts goodies because I was super excited about the launch of the new Gorjuss range. I have to say a huge thank you to the really helpful staff at The Range in Kings Lynn as they hadn't been able to put some of the new products out yet but they went to the warehouse and bought out a pallet of boxes and let me find what I wanted! I ended up with 8 fabulous stamp sets, papers, ribbons, decoupage, bakers twine & buttons (that came free with the Creativity magazine) as well as the new goodie bag and new animal urban stamps. The stamps inparticular are brilliant because they are really deep cut rubber and while that does mean they are not see-through, they stamp perfectly with excellent clarity (even though I'm not a great stamper). Here's my first card I've made using my new goodies-

This card was inspired by the packaging of the Gorjuss products (which can also be used) as it shows the stamped images left as black & white, giving a drawn look. I really liked how it looked so thought I'd use it on my card. I started with a dark purple A4 piece of card that I've had in my stash for ages which I folded into an A5 card blank. I then used 2 papers from the 8x8 and 6x6 paper packs as mats. I made the topper by stamping using a black memento ink onto one of the 6x6 papers that has a distressed lined effect. I mounted this onto the purple mat and then added the buttons (free with magazine) and a mini black bow from my crafty stash. I finished the card by wrapping the purple & cream bakers twine 3 times around the edge of the card and then knotting it before fraying the hanging part.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:-
Love to Create 'wrap it up' (bakers twine)
Cute Card Thursday 'something old' (A4 base card)
Creative Inspirations 'buttons and bows'
Paper Shelter 'animal magic' (cute pussy cat)
The Pink Elephant 'anything goes'
Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenges 'favourite colours' (purple & black)