Spinner card

I made One of these cards recently as a Thank You for a friend & stupidly forgot to take a photo! So I made another one from the leftovers!

All the papers are from K&Co - I think it's Bailey - but I only have bits and pieces left, so I'm entering this for the snippets playground make. The flower spins and I think Di had a lot of fun playing with it lol!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Debs

WOYWW 203

So this is my desk today, a big old mess! In need of a major sort out, but not today.

 

Front and centre are my latest toys, a couple of sets of silicone moulds and some Martha Stewart air dry clay. Will be trying ultra thick embossing powder In these too! Must say I'm not impressed with the small packet of clay - hope it goes  long way! And on the windowsill you can see my new glass jars from the lovely Di over at Pixies Playground - already got a couple filled with buttons! Di hosts a weekly snippets challenge and these jars were a giveaway on her blog.

We had a beautiful sunny day here yesterday, and Barney decided to reclaim the lawn as 'his' by spending most if the day slap bang in the centre :-)

In case you're wondering why I'm sharing my messy desk, click here to visit Julia's world wide desk hop

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Inkylicious colour blending

Hi everyone, and welcome to my new followers, Mary Mac and Crafty Debs - I appreciate you adding me to your blog favourites!

This card is one of my designs featured in this months (May '13) edition of Making Cards.  Poor pic, I know - really need to work on the photography skills!

The base card is 8" square, the panel dies used are Spellbinders Mega Curved Rectangles, decorated with Joy crafts flourishes 6002/0020 & 6002/0033 and memory Box Butterfly dies Vivienne & Darla.  The stamp set used is my current favourite, 'Oriental Awakenings' from Inkylicious.

All the inks used are Distress Inks, applied with Inklyicious Ink Dusters to give a lovely soft finish.

The colours are actually much softer than they look in this pic, but my rubbish photography has flattened and darkened the colours - must try harder lol!!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Flowerpot thank you card

This is based on a Split Coast Stampers tutorial I saw on you tube, and I've wanted to try it for a while but not had the time (you know how that goes, right??)  It's a basic fold with aperture at the top, trimmed diagonally at the sides to the shape of a flowerpot, then add a punched border and a tag inside plus tons of flowers - very therapeutic all that cutting and sticking :-)

And I got to use up lots of snippets from my First Edition New Leaf pad, so entering this in Pixies Snippets Challenge!

 

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

WOYWW and the trials of colour matching!

This is my desk yesterday. Not changed as I had a class yesterday afternoon

On the right you can see a selection of 12x 12  papers, getting ready for my class. I then needed to find a contrast paper for each, toning ribbon and card. If you've ever sat and spent ages matching up colours for a card, multiply this x 16, and you'll have some idea of how long this process can take when prepping a class! LOL! And this is what we made.......

The envelope is folded from one 12 x 12 sheet into a DL sized envelope with 2 outer flap envelope openings and 1 inner 'secret' compartment.......









and we made 3 tag cards with stamped panels to decorate - I was really pleased with the vintage style finished project









So I'm off to hop around crafty desks around the world, where crafters share their desks and inspiration via Julia's woyww page.

Thanks for stopping by

Debs xx

Scrapping the good...and the not so good!

I've been a bit busy for the last week and not much crafting was done. But there was a Grand Prix this weekend, which means hours of crafty pleasure for me :-)

So I finished another couple of scrapbook pages from last years holiday. And in the spirit of scrapping the whole experience, one of these pages is about our noisy cabin and my seasick day :-(

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Using drinks cans to craft metal embellishments

This is a photo heavy tutorial!

I've used cans to supply craft metal for some time (and Hubby so enjoys helping with the supplies lol!!).  I taught my craft class this technique in a recent die - cutting class. A few people on the blog recently asked for a step by step tutorial, so here 'tis!

I'm sure you can find a video on you tube, and there are bound to be better (and safer!) ways to do this, but this is what works for me....

You will need.....scissors and an empty, clean drinks can (food cans are too thick and don't work) - soft drinks are just as effective, but this is what''s readily available in the Willis house!

the gardening glove is my nod to health and Safety, as cutting the can exposes some nasty sharp edges.  Please don't use your best crafty scissors, I use an old cheapo pair that aren't used for anything special - if you have one of those super duper knives that cut anything ( as sold on various tv shopping channels!) that would probably work too!

The first thing you do is use one blade of the scissors and poke the point through the tin near the top........

....then make the same sort of incision near the base.  I find it easier to puncture top and bottom whilst the can is still intact. Once you cut off one end it is much harder to puncture the other end. Then you cut off one end starting at the incision you just made - I do this still using one blade of the scissors in a sawing motion, you might find it easier to cut with them using them as actual scissors!

 

Once you've removed both top and bottom, you will be left with a tin tube and two ends......

 

  The next step is to change it from a tube to a flat piece of metal.  So use your scissors to cut a straight line up the length of the can - I find it easiest to follow the line where all the text ends, it's usually a good guide, but will obviously depend on the manufacturer.

 

....this will leave you with a tight tube, but probably lots of nasty sticky out ends of metal!  These are very dangerous, and part of the reason for the garden glove - you will really know it if you catch your hand on one of these little shards! If you're anything like me the first time I did this, the air will turn blue :-) so USE A GLOVE!! Ahem, sorry about the lecture, soap box has been returned to its resting place lol!

So you need to trim the 2 ends to give even edges with no shards. I sometimes get a large shard where I've been a bit vigorous with my cutting! So the size of this shard determines how much I need to cut off to get an even edge....

  

You should now have a nice even length of metal (still tightly rolled!) with no shards or uneven edges.  You can throw all the offcuts away, and this is how I straighten out the tube.....

 

.....I pull the tube over the edge of my kitchen worktop several times to flatten it! You won't get it completely flat, but enough to work with, and once you start cutting and embossing, it will flatten out even more.

Now for the fun bit! You can die cut (I tend to tape the die to the metal)....

 

You can run it through an embossing folder............

 

and don't waste the 'waste'! These make great frames for scrapbook pages or cards....

Once you're done, you can colour with alcohol inks, and I find the best adhesive is Pinflair glue gel (or any silicone gel) as the metal may not be totally flat, a flexible adhesive works best.

Hope this helps you upcycle those cans, and I would love to see anything you make with them!!

Happy crafting

Debs x

More Christmas snippets!

This card is a variation on a snippets make from last week, I just cut lots of small squares, and laid them on the A6 card like a diamond patchwork,and added faux stitching. Then used the last few layers of the stacker topper I used on the card in my previous post - I hardly ever use all the layers of any decoupage/stackers on one card - always conscious of Mr Posties need for lower rate postage to fit a card thru the annoying skinny slot!!!

I really struggle to use A6 cards - I prefer larger Cards, and I am particularly into square cards at the moment. I find it easier to work with a larger space to decorate - what about you? Do you prefer big or small cards? This one doesn;t look quite right to me, but I'm not sure what's missing - all suggestions on a postcard please ....lol!!

I am entering this into Pixies Snippets Playground, cos everything on here is snippets, even the greeting was found lurking in my newly unearthed box of Christmas stuff! Also into Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge, cos the sentiment is one of my all time fave Christmas songs!

Happy crafting

Debs x

More snow!

Yesterday was absolutely freezing here on the South Coast, and we had light snow for most of the afternoon, thank goodness it didn't settle.

So it seemed appropriate to be making Christmas cards! This one is for Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge - 'Christmas song' - I thought this song might be appropriate for the penguins to sing!

 

I was having a bit of a tidy in the craft room & found 2 x A4 boxes of unidentified 'stuff'. When I opened them up I found lots of part finished Christmas projects & paper off cuts, old cards kept for upcycling, heat embossed Christmas greetings and on and on! Looks like I have enough to make several years worth of cards, and that's not counting any of my 'proper' Christmas stash!

 

So as this card is made from snippets, I will also enter it in Pixies Snippets Playground

Hope the weather is a bit kinder where you are!

PS - for those who asked about the tin cans, I will upload a tutorial later today or tomorrow

Debs x

WOYWW and daisies

Wednesday again and time to travel the craft world courtesy of Julia's stamping ground. I actually tidied my desk this week - though you wouldn't know from these photos! I had a box of bits and pieces that had been full to overflowing for weeks, and I finally sorted it all out - a very infrequent occurrence lol! Only problem is, in the process of sorting and dumping stuff, I managed to lose the cap to my [hubby's] scalpel - think it made it into the bin with a sweep of stuff off the desktop :-( See, there's a good reason why I don't tidy often!

My desk is back to normal messiness - was trying out my pebeo paints for Sheena's paint fusion technique (inspired by Hettie's work here) - had them for a while and thought I would try a few daisies and some lavender. only problem was, I couldn't find the stamps (hope they didn't go with the scalpel cap lol!!), so it ended up being just paint sans fusion!

First attempt was too much blue under the white, so tried again, looked a little better. Still need to practice!

A few people have asked about a previous WOYWW post, and how I use tin cans, and how to cut them up, so I will try to post a tutorial later in the week, with some samples. In the meantime, Shaz in Oz has been playing with tin cans & alcohol inks and produced some wonderful results!

Will be back later to check out other crafty desks, so thanks for stopping by.

Debs xx