Hello Crafters out there,
did I say I was off to bed? I lied!
I couldn't resist a go at misting, but I entirely failed. I don't have any mists, but I do own a set of Gelatos I have never used. I've wanted to make a mists from them for ages and never dared, because they are so expensive.
But I went ahead tonight, but it simply didn't work. So I gave it up and went for blending the Gelatos with a baby wipe and my fingers. So here is the result:
I embossed the sentiment on vellum, added a few rhinestones and popped up the panel on the card base.
So now, please stop posting pictures, I really desperately need some sleep.
Good night
Ela
P.S: I remembered to take the daylight shot:
Hello again,
my second post tonight. As mentioned earlier, this week-end is stenciling time, and I'd like to show you my first card:
Sorry for the bad lighting, I'll try to remember to take a daylight shot tomorrow.
I must say, this is kind of different for me. Usually I plan my cards, searching for all the perdfect elements, doing and re-doing things until I am either happy with my card or totally frustrated. Tonight I just wanted to have something to link up and show, and it didn't need to be perfect for a special occasion.
I felt rather free, a rogue crafter set loose.
As you can see, I started with Debby's card (Debby, I love your accent!). I didn't have the perfect sentiment, to put on a tag, so I changed it up for a vellum butterfly and a sentiment in the corner. I am glad, I finally found something, my butterfly die really cuts: thin vellum! I love the die and as I don't have a shim it was pretty useless to me so far.
In the end I am rather content with the result, even though I went overboard with the dots. I would not usually have chosen the bright yellow cardstock as a matt, but it fittet the ink nicely.
Speaking of sentiments:
I really do have a lack of good sentiments. I don't like using English sentiments all the time, because my friends and family are all from Germany. "Happy Birthday" and "Merry Christmas" are ok, but most of the other sentiments I'd rather have in German. So if any of you knows where to get really cool versatile German sentiment stamps, give me a hint please!
I think I'm off to bed now, wishing you crafty dreams
Ela
P.S: I received a gift certificate from Simon's for Christmas, and I desperately wish my order had arrived already. I know it's a long way, but pleeeease hurry up!
Hi there,
I've been pretty busy over the Christmas holidays, most of all because I had to work most of the time, with my girls at home. No mercy for single Moms at my office.
And I got infected by a knitting virus. My mother gave my daugthers loop scarfs, that I instantly fell in love with. Mom, why didn't I get any? (I'm save, she's not reading anything on the internet)
My sister-in-law and mother-in-law both also liked them a lot, so I decided to knit some myself. They are made from thick wool, knitted with even larger needles (European 12, which I consider more of a weapon than a needle), so I can finish a scarf in about 2-3 evening.
It brought back happy childhood memories. My mother was always knitting socks, nonstop, even in summer. Most of them she donated to Unicef to be sold at the local Christmas market. And of course all of the family would get a symbolic single sock, for which she'd knit the second one during Christmas holidays, because with all the knitting for the market she hadn't gotten round to them any earlier.
And while I was at it, I taught my dauthers to crochet. Now I have wooly pieces everywhere in the house. I am not yet sure if it was a good idea.
Anyhow, so here are the originals:
And my versions:
My own is not yet done. I created half of it yesterday, but this week-end I am participating in the "Stenciled" online card class, so I won't have any time for knitting.
So wishing you a crafty week-end
Ela
Hi Crafters,
Christmas is approaching fast now. Our school will have a booth at the local Christmas market next week-end. And as if I hadn't enough to do, I volunteered to create some cards. So I've been trying to squeeze this in for a few weeks now. Including two very crafty week-ends. You really wouldn't want to see, how the house looks right now!
But now I have finally completed something and I might make some more of the simpler cards over the week - depending on time and energy available.
So, here it comes...
The first set was inspired by the new die and stamp and stencil set
from Simon Says Stamp, which I don't own, so I simply cut out the
pieces. It's not too difficult, because these are all simple shapes -
except for the bow, which I didn't want to use anyway.
Finding that both my star punches are too small, I used a star stamp from a Christmas set, stamped it in a light color and cut it out before I coated it in 2 layers of gold embossing powder. Would you believe it, there was NO fitting punch available around here.
The green paper strips and the lining of the envelop I created myself with distress inks, lots of water, some stencils and an airbrush. I also colored some white cardstock with my distress inkpad for the trunks.
For the red baubles I wanted a paper pen, but couldn't get one in red, so I used white window color to create the dots, colored them with an alcohol marker and stuck them on the branches with some liquid glue.
The snowbank is just a torn piece of paper, with the sentiment in golden embossing powder.
I created 24 of these cards and am hoping to sell them in sets of 5. The 4 extra cards are just to test, if they sell better solo. If the do, the ladies at the booth can just rip apart the sets and sell the cards individually.
Looking back: Why the hell didn't I go for something more simple? Creating these sets cost me so much time, with all the cutting and the makeshift baubles.
As the Paper Players have an evergreen challange this week, and I thought that this card fits, not only for the obvious reason (featuring a christmas tree), but also because my fingers are probably going to stay forever green, after all the inking I did...
I also added it to the Simon Says Stamp "anything goes" challenge, because their stamp and die set inspired me.
My second idea was much more simple, a single layer card with a little masking, stamping and embossing. I could even recruit my daughters to help me stamping the envelop liners. They loved it, and so did I. So far I have only created one set of 5 from these, but as I said before, if I find the time, I might make a few more.
Credits fore this go to Annika from Annikarten who inspired me on this.
So enjoy the rest of your week and, and have a great Christmas time
Ela
Hello Crafter,
I have been such a lazy blogger. There has been too much life going on here and Christmas is coming quickly. I promised myself, this year I would be ready for it and not let it catch me unawares.
I have not been an as lazy crafter as I've been a blogger, I did a few things at least. For one, our school is selling handmade items at the local christmas market in 10 days, so I am making a bunch of cards for this. I will show you these soon, but not yet. Right now my workspace is a terrible mess, my fingers are green from ink and I keep miscounting and re-counting how many envelops, card fronts and sentiments are still missing.
What I'd like to share with you today, are a few crafty tips to save some money.
Firstly I was thinking to buy a ranger craft sheet, but I found a cheaper solution now at IKEA. I got myself an SOCKERKAKA baking mat for 9,99 Euro. It is made of silicone and seems to work quite nicely for me. As I've never seen the original in real life, I can't compare the two, but I am happy. And I got it for about half the price I would have payed for a ranger craft sheet.
Afterwards I saw, that there is an even cheaper version (MÖNSTRAD; 4,99 Euro), which is a little smaller and I think I might have liked that even better, but they didn't have it at my local IKEA.
The 2nd item on my shopping list was an embossing powder tool. In itself not that expensive, about 10-12 Euro, but in Germany these supplies are often hard to get. So I decided to try out, if I can create my own, and it worked beautifully.
I used an old sock of my daughters, filled in a whole package of cheap baby powder (about 1 Euro) and sewed the top shut. Now I store my "powder sock" in an old sweets container, so I don't have the powder everywhere when I don't use it, and it works fabulous.
And no. 3 on my list of things I wanted and worked my way around is a selfmade stamp-a-ma-jig. I just took an old piece of wood from the garage and screwed an ellbow connector to it. Not very pretty, but it works for me. I use it with a piece of an old clear acetate cover.
So this is it from me for today. If you like send me more ideas for do-it-yourself craft items.
Happy crafting
Ela
Hello Crafters out there,
I've been pretty busy lately and didn't get to craft much, but I DID place a way too large order for card making supplies, including the envelop punch board, three embossing folders and a few stencils. I also got my own basic set of Gelatos. Would you believe it, Faber Castell - a very old traditional German company - don't produce them for the German market! How could they do that to me? It took me a year to decide I wanted them after all, even if they had to be imported from the USA.
I also got a whole bunch of distress inkpads. Would you believe it, until that order arrived last week, I owned exactly one: Peeled Paint.
So to try them out, I did a very quick card today. I'm sad to say, that it was not my own idea, I took my inspiration from Mia's card.
However I turned it into a Christmas card, using christmasy colors and stars, snowflakes and little trees instead of hearts.
I sponged the white card base with red distress ink and the edges with just a little brown ink, because it seemed too bright. Then I splotted some water on, just to try it out. To make the black cardstock look more like chalkboard, I treated it with a little baby powder, then I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment and added faux stiching. To stick on the punched shapes, I used the tiniest bits of foam adhesive, with a tiny gap in the middle, for the string.
I am pretty happy with my card, so I do hope you'll like it too.
As it fits this week's SSS challenge (use a product from the Simon Says Stamp Store) I'll upload it there. The distress inks can be had at Simon's, and also my favorite gel pen.
Happy crafting
Ela
Supplies:
Heyda cardstock (black and white)
White embossing powder
Signo Uniball broad white gel pen
Distress ink Festive Berries, Gathered Twigs and Mowed Lawn (envelop)
2 little stars from a Christmas stampset (envelop)
Simple Stories Patterned Paper (handmade holiday 6x6)
Twine
Punches
black fine liner (envelop)
(Sorry, whenever I don't mention the exact details, I don't know them)
Hello Crafters,
I simply loved Kristina's Birthday Fishes card, when I first saw it. The blue and turqoise is a great color combination, and the stampset is so adorable. So I tried to re-create the look for this challenge at Keep it simple:
However, as I don't own, the stamps or any distress inks or a whole lot of copics, I had to improvise a lot, so my card looks a quite bit different.
Supplies:
Stampin' Up Build a Blosson
Heyda "Alles Gute"
Watercolor pencils and crayons
Watercolor paper
Black fine marker
VersaColor Royal Blue
VersaMagic Turqoise Gem
ColorBox Robin's Egg
Top Boss Watermark
Black fine embossing powder
Uniball Signo broad white gel pen
Waterbrush
I used the Build a Blosson solid stamps to create the fish, coloring them with watercolor "crayons" (not sure if this is, they are called Woody 3 in 1, by Stabilo). I traced the outlines and drew in the details with the black marker, freehanded and colored the party hats.
For the background I tried my best to coax the non-distress inks into distress behaviour, which didn't work to well. Something elso an my Christmas wishlist...
The sentiment stamp has a swirl on it, which I didn't like, so I covered it with washi before inking it up.
Wishing you all a great week-end
Ela
Hello Crafters out there,
I did get around some stamping last night. Inspired by the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge Animal Antics and this Sketch by Freshly made Sketches, I created a Halloween card.
Supplies:
Paper:
DCWV Textured Card - orange
Heyda black cardstock
white watercolor paper
Colors/Inks:
VersaColor black
ColorBox Frostwhite
Top Boss watermark
Tsukineko Emboss dual pen
Uniball Signo broad white gel pen
Watercolor pencils
Stamps:
Stampin' Up "Kleine Wünsche"
Unity Stamp Company "SHEart Doodles"
Artemio background stamp (handwriting) <- the set seems to have no name
Free digital bat stamp from the Alley Way
Others:
Clear embossing powder
Black fine embossing powder
Foam dots, Taperunner
What a list, I was never aware I was using so many different things...
Once again, I had to (clear) emboss the printed image, to keep the ink from running, but with the lines rather bold, that works nicely. I also embossed the sentiment and stiching in black.
As usual I used my daughters' watercolor pencils, to color the bat. "My" Inktense pencils are already on my wishlist for Christmas. Like so many other things...
For example black ribbon, of which I seem to own not a single inch. So for the ribbon in the sketch I had to make do with a slim piece of black cardstock and three white gel pen dots. But I have to admit, for this image I like the simplicity better, than I would have liked a ribbon and bow.
To pop up the wings so much, I used 3 foam dots on each side, one close to the body and two on top of each other towards the outside. This makes the card a bit bulky, but I will probably never send it anyway. Halloween is not greatly celebrated in Germany, and I really don't know anyone to send it to.
Wishing you a very early Happy Halloween
Ela
Hello to everyone,
the Paper Players are challanging us this week to create fall themed cards:
So as there are a few autumn birthdays coming up in my family, I decided for a fall birthday card.
I used my newest stampset "French Foliage" by Stampin' up and inked each stamp with two earthy colors to achieve a color blending.
I hope you like it.
And something entriely differnet: Katharina is offering a cute bundle of flowers and embellishments as a blog candy this week, on her blog. Have a look, isn't that cute?
Happy fall
Ela
Hello crafters,
no card today, I wanted to craft a little today, but it took me all evening to read all the blogs from the Simon Says Stamp bloghop. I love how all of you are sooo creative, but if STAMPtember keeps up this pace, I won't get around to do any stamping myself.
Have a great day
Ela
