Dream Crafts

My very good friend Cath, has been making cards for many years. In fact it was through looking at her cards that inspired me to start making some for myself last year.

Needless to say her card needed to be my best work. Now I did copy this design from darlenedesign. She makes very lovely cards and best of all gives a list of all the items in the card.

So armed with my owl punch here is what I made.

Looks pretty plain on the outside. I used a leather grain paper for the envelope and added an owl peeking out.

You can”t see the colours on the cake here, but it is coloured in. I used the cake cuttlebug die for the cake plate and believe it or not it is all silver.

I was also playing around with making boxes, so she got part of her gift in this little triangle box.

I forgot to take a picture of the inside, but it has petals layered in there. and it needed its own tag of course.

I just punched a small hole in the top of this and then threaded some gold thread through to tie it to the box.

And of course no gift is complete without being wrapped. In keeping with the card I wanted owl themed wrapping paper, so I have to make some.

This is the work in progress. I simply cut templates for the circles and scallops in my cuttlebug, and sponged the ink on. The owl in the middle is stamped on from the Punch Bunch set from Stampin Up. When I had finished I sprayed on two coats of spray on gloss to give the whole thing shine and strength. I was pretty happy with the finished product.

I have to say that Cath was pretty impressed, and even went so far as to carefully fold the paper and put it in with her card making stuff.

Time for an update.

As with all new hobbies, a lot of time is spent on it, whether actually doing it or just thinking about it.

Anyway in amougst the thinking I have been experimenting, and slowly things will start to come together.

So here is the first one. I have some pink embossing powder that I don””t like very much so I have been trying to make it work somehow. This is the result

It is just a single stamp that I got from a stamp shop, but I do like the way the hearts overlap together on the stamp. The paper was from a baby scrapbooking set  and I put it on a metalic off white card, with the envelope to match. I used my cuttlebug to cut the spellbinders circles and scalloped circle and sponged them with Passion pink and Regal Rose ink by stampin up.

Next up I got this die for my cuttlebug so had to try it out

First of all I am no artist but still I used watercolour pencils on white watercolour paper to try and make it look a  little like water. Then I embossed it with Gem Flourish embossing folder. The seahorses were cut using Saraha sand paper and coloured with orange and yellow markers. The seaweed was stamped from an old stamp that I have had for a long time, in garden green and then I just added the shell and starfish.

I have left a space at the top to add a greeting when I decide what the card will be used for.

The bluebirds were another old stamp that I had, but I can””t really remember ever using it before.

Anyway I stamped them with black stazon onto pale blue cardstock and using the blender pen I coloured them with Ballet Blue, and cut them out. Onto white card stock I sponged a bit of sky in Ballet Blue, and for the grass I first sponged Sahara Sand and lightly covered it with Garden Green . The branch and the hello was from Hero Arts Trees Birds and Messages stamp set. The tag was cut using the slider die.

You can see so far a lot of experimenting and not all of it turns our well. And now more

I got the Hearts and Stamps die so had to have a play with it. I used cream metallic cardstock and folded the card longways for a change. I embossed the front edge with the Frills folder and carefully cut along the edge. The hearts were cut with three different pink card and papers and then just mixed and match onto the base. The edges of the card was sponged with Passion Pink as was the stamp set Stampin Up A Little Bit of Happiness. The sentiment was just a sticker I found in a pack that I had forgotten that I had.

Then I got a bit more ambitious.

Using only gold and black paper I embossed a gold page with the Starry Night folder and layered it with black and then onto a gold card.

The stars were cut using the stars cuttlebug dies, and the large one was embossed using gold glitter embossing powder. The stars were layered with black underneath, and the words were made up with letters that I had. But that is not all.

This is the inside of the card. I embossed the black with the Starry Night folder and used the Stars to cut out the same style of stars as the front. I then cut a couple of circles out of acetate and cut them into spirals.

I have seen some tutorials on how to do this so wanted to give it a try. Over all I was pretty happy with the results and it was nice and easy to do.

So that is the playing so far lets see what the future will bring.

Starting a new hobby can be very expensive, while you are getting set up. So you have to look for bargins wherever you can find them.

So on Trade Me a great deal came up for some hardly used Stampin Up things that were at a very good price, and whats more most of it was on my wish list.

What a fabulous start to my Stampin Up goods. I had great fun unpacking it all this morning, it was just like christmas.

There will be no stopping me now.

Well last week was a hard one. Bevan has been working long hours, and I have only been seeing him for an hour or two in the morning. Every night has been a late night so I would already be asleep by the time he got home. The whole thing was bringing me down and I was feeling quite low.

Yesterday I got a surprise package in the mail.

My friend Maureen, moved to Aussie a few years ago, and has made friends with some lovely ladies over there.One of them, Linda, has made me a beautiful peg apron. Actually it was meant to be a christmas present, but Maureen suggested that I open it straight away.

It is so beautiful and has some very lovely hand stitching on it.

I have to say, Thank you so much Linda, your kindness has cheered me more than you know at a time when things were getting on top of me.