Offcuts & New Tools

Hello again my lovelies

A few weeks back, I posted this card here.

Well as I was clearing up through my offcuts, I came across the blue heart cut from this design. Too good to throw away, I filed it and promptly forgot about it. Until now. So I figured I ought to make good use of it.

As you can see, I grabbed the same stencil but instead of blue, I inked over it with Khaki, using a new tool. Tim Holtz's mini ink blending tool.

I know it's created for his new mini inks (of which I have the original size pads and they still have plenty of ink in 'em, so I'm not tempted for the moment). But their circular design makes them a better applicator than the rectangular ones. You don't get those hard edges as you're dabbing the ink over the stencil.

Anyhoo, with my Khaki design, I overlaid the blue heart, trying as best I could to line the pattern up. I then added a paper bow from a die I recently purchased and stamped the sentiment, in black, onto Kraft card.

And there you have it. It's a bit quirky to have a pastel blue heart in a design and not red or pink but maybe it can be used to send to a guy. Blue and brown are a perfect combo for guys anyway.

For the Love of Kraft

Another fun and busy week. We've booked our main holiday. France, if you couldn't guess. My love affair with Brittany hasn't dissipated. I've ordered seeds for the garden. Yes, I'm going green fingered this year. I've never experienced the joy of growing my own produce, so I plan to get my fingers dirty. Okay, true, I'll be wearing marigold gloves and keeping dirt to a minimum. I'm more Margo than Tom in the garden.

I've also found myself attending the start of a fitness course. I'm determined to shift my chubby tum. I've cut out the sugar. Next to go is the bread and pasta. But that's next week. One thing at a time. I'm realistic. I never have been and will never be a gym bunny. And I love cooking and food. I just have to look up new types of meals. Ones that have vegetables in them! Indeed, as I type, I can smell the beetroot roasting away downstairs, which will eventually be pureed into soup.

And to round the working week off, I'm relaxing by hiding away in my craft room, listening to War of the Worlds on my computer and joining in with this week's sketch challenge over at Mojo Monday.

Here's the sketch...

For which I grabbed my stack of Kraft card, chopped away at it and finally came up with this...

I was tempted to go Kraft all the way and be truly monochrome in the design. It's just that black looks so darned good against it. I gave in and allowed it to creep in and accent the focal sentiment.

The trend right now may be for bright, neon colours but I'm still in love with the natural, hippy style of Kraft card. Tan is a colour too. One, every crafter should have in their stash!

More Black & Kraft

I'm certainly making the most of my Kraft card. I may be late coming to the trend but boy do I love the look. I've seen cards, tags and journals all decorated in kraft and black in the shops and I've even bought a few stationary items too.

So I'm not surprised that I'm having great fun putting together my own. Like this one...

The lace stamp is from Penny Black Stamps and the small circular stamp from a hero Arts set. I'm not sure who did the sentiment set.

I stamped the Kraft card first, using my Fiskar Stamp Press (makes repeat patterns so much easier) and matted onto black card. I attached this to the Kraft card base. I then stamped the sentiment and fussy cut it out (I'm as happy as the next crafter to use dies to cut out label shapes but I have to say there's something much more satisfying about cutting out shapes yourself with scissors).

Thanks for popping by

Abstract Hot Glue Frames

I have to thank Kirsty Wiseman for her tutorials with hot glue embellishments (check out one of her videos here). It opened my eyes to the possibilities of how to do more with my glue gun than just stick things on things.

I had one of those Aha moments whilst sitting quietly that I wanted to make a batch of abstract frames to use in my cards.

I like the randomness of creating these frames. They're not neat and perfect. More blobby and individual. Here I chose two of my frames, one slightly bigger than the other. As you can see, I was also playing around with different thicknesses.

I didn't use nail varnish (or polish if you're reading this in America) to colour them as per Kirsty's suggestion. Though I do have some knocking about here, but it's Chanel & definitely not to be used on anything other than decorating one's nails thank you.

Instead I have a bottle of silver liquid brush leaf which does the exact same job. The only difference is that you really do have to work with the windows open. The fumes could keel over a baby elephant.

The rest of the card was made with a choice of neutral greys and just a hint of colour with the teal, all backed onto Kraft. Yes I finally have some in my stash but that's a story for another time.

Thanks for popping by. Have a great weekend.