March Rudolph Day

Hiya

It's the 25th of the month, and that means.....

Rudolph Day !

This is where we make a christmas card .....

Friends often make fun of me making these so early,

but it's not as silly as it sounds!

When they are frantically making theirs, or in lots of cases, buying

because they just don't have the time to make them,

I am at least a little ahead of the game.

I had a marbling class recently,

where we got inky and played with shaving foam.

You may have tried this yourself,

but if not, take some cheap shaving foam,

spread some on a paper plate, add ink droplets,

swirl it about a bit, lay on a piece of card, scrape off excess and leave to dry.

Here's one used as a background, using just real red....

I wanted to try a never-before-used stamp set Jolly Christmas and came up with this....

Using my fave stitched rectangles, a prize from the Snippets Playground,

and the globe from The Open Sea, I gold embossed Rudolph and fussy cut him out.

Please visit ScrappyMo's Rudolph Day challenge

for lots more projects from very talented folk.

Happy Easter

Lesley

xxx

xx

x

HOSTESS CODE:

For Online orders under £150

Please use the Hostess Code for March

7M63B2YA

to receive a special gift from me

Diamonds are forever

Here's a collection of diamond fold cards I made recently.

All stamped with The Open Sea.

I designed them all in inches,

and all to fit in a standard envelope.

 Here's the first

They all fold flat for easy postage too.

I hope you'll pop by tomorrow for more

Lesley

xxx

xx

x

Stampin' Up! Open Sea

Another Faux Tile effect card,

using The Open Sea.

This is done by scoring regular lines vertically and horizontally to form the 'grout',

and gently sponging ink over the'tiles'.

I chopped a section off and laid it horizontally,

layered up the greeting and added some card candy (faux brads).

Postcard

A dear Uncle had a Birthday recently,

and being well-traveled I thought I'd do him a 'Postcard' one....

The globe is from 'Open Sea',

and I then had fun finding sentiments to fit the 'address' section,

and adding the 'bunting'.

I even stitched some chevron ribbon , and added a gold star coz he deserves one!

Did you know you can get this Banner Punch FREE

during sale-a-bration?!

Contact me for more details

Lesley x
lesleygillett@tiscali.co.uk

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day! 

To all the unsung heroes out there!

I am so lucky to have a wonderful Dad, AND a wonderful Dad-in Law,

to make cards for....

Here's one based on the 'Countryside' set....

torn, inked edges, and quite grungy...

This was based on 'The Open Sea'...

I offset two ovals to give the saturn-type ring,

and die-cut/punched the letters.

Two different styles, but which would you choose?

faded jeans

A bit more baby wipe technique...

(see posts below)

this time, two blues, added a little green, to give the impression of faded denims...

You can stamp multiple images, to use later....

then I thought...what other stamps would work...

so I tried it on a hot air balloon....

then I looked at the colours, and found my set 'the open sea'....

if I angled it right, I could just get the illusion of 'land' and 'sea'

This will make a good background for one of those hard-to-do male cards...

Get on yer bike!

Masculine cards are so much harder aren't they?

This motorbike is sadly retired, but maybe it'll make a comeback.

The background uses the open sea.

The greeting is from bring on the cake, ("not just a year older.....but a year better")

and I punched the holes around the bike with the essentials paper-piercing pack. 

F-I-L

Hello!

So much to tell you, and so little time omg!

I have been madly crafting, and I have sooooo much to show you!

Here's one I made for my dear father-in-law..

my fave triple-layer stamping eh what!

I shall be back with more......

Tip for Today!

I've been playing with some shrink plastic,

and the Stampin' Up set "The Open Sea" again!

I wanted to make some "buttons" with the "world"....

but had trouble centering the punched holes....

until I got out the pricking tools....

I lined up the cut out "world" with the eyelet section....

and hey presto!...pretty accurate holes!

The anchors look pretty cute too....punched holes before shrinking, so I can hang them on twine!

Hopefully you can see the shrinkage size from the original stamped images....

It's great fun!......once you get over the ooooeeer it's going wrong!

Just keep heating........if it gets stuck, just tweak apart,

and keep e.g. a clear block to hand, to flatten it out, whilst still warm... 

ENJOY!

Father's Day (tip for today)

I am lucky to have two of these cards to make!

This one was whetted by my appetite for shrink plastic....

I made a sheet for the background, which I then cut into panels.

Cut and embossed a frame, and used bakers twine to hang my hand made "trinkets".

My "tip for today" is.......if your punch doesn't cut as cleanly as you'd liked,

take the edge of scissors, and rough-up the edge all around.

I did it on the "Dad" oval......should have taken a close-up for you!

I then edged it in ink, using a dauber.....(am addicted to doing this too....it looks good, and masks any rough edges!)
Also difficult to see, but I "filled in" the sea with a dauber and ink.

Tiny brads add a finishing touch.
In hindsight, my "ship" background layer is too dark,
but you learn by mistakes!

Father's Day....

Here's the card front, from the previous post....

Using "The Open Sea", and Framelits dies,

I added one of the vintage tags, stamped with the compass,

and made an anchor from shrink plastic.

I love how this stamp set is so easy to layer up.

I also used my new lattice embossing folder.......I'd seen it on so many other peoples projects I just had to add it to my collection! It's particularly good for male themes.
The reverse gives an impression of little crosses.....good for other events.

Happy Birthday Matthew!

Wishing my "big" nephew a very Happy Birthday!

The eldest of two fab nephews I am lucky to have!

I couldn't decide between Stampin' Up! "The Open Sea",
"Up up and Away", and "Ain't Love Grand",
so I used all three!

This was my first real attempt at a swing card, like Natalie O'Shea tried to teach us at Training!
It's quite easy with the Framelits dies....

I had to add extra weight with the Lucky Limeade strips....

used a bit of Lucky Limeade bakers twine for the aeroplane banner..

Hope you had a great day Matt!!!!! xxxx

The Open Sea

This is one I did using my new framelits dies to make the "sea"

and my latest fave Stampin' Up! stamp set "The Open Sea"

so many ways to use this one......just not enough hours to play as usual!

The cloud is from Create a Cupcake, the birds are from Up, Up & Away
(methinks you'll see the birds a lot!)
Twine around the anchor, couple of brads, and some pool party ruffled ribbon...

For George

Am loving the new "The Open Sea" stamp set from Stampin' Up!

here's one I did for Grandad George...

Not had much time to experiment, but this is a brilliant one for layering stamped images,

and as I've not got many men's sets, you might see this again!

Inking the torn edges made it look charred and old, and I punched small circles from cardstock to make faux brads.....and distressed the small blue layer with the edges of scissors, which gives it more texture..

There's other fab examples on other peoples blogs...

am loving juliesjapes.blogspot.co.uk...

Happy Birthday Mum and Dad!

Mum is 80 today, and Dad is 80 tomorrow,

and we've had a lovely few days together.

Mum's card is Creative Elements in Wisteria Wonder, Pool Party & Rose Red,

blingy because she's worth it!

Dad's is The Open Sea and Motorcycle ,

in Wisteria, Pool & Island Indigo...

Was able to use the lush ruffled ribbon on both,

and really enjoyed making these,

partly because I had some quality time to spend on them for a change....

and time to reflect on how lucky we are to have them....

special cards for special people xxx