Create Your Own Summer

This card is so fresh and full of the sights and colours of summer and best of all it’s easy to make.

Using the same method as our last triple easel card, you can create your own summery card just by changing the paper and dies that you use.

You will need:

1 sheet of Foundations Paper Dot and Dash in Red and White 

1 sheet of white card stock

1 sheet of red card stock

Cosmic Shimmer Pearly PVA 

Creative Expressions- Sincere Sentiments ‘Sending you Sunshine, Laughter and Hugs’

Spellbinder Hearts Circles

Spellbinders Rose Creations

Spellbinders Fanciful Flight

Spellbinders Foliage

Versamark Pad

Brilliance Pearl Poppy Ink Pad

Crystal Embossing Powder

2 Brads of choice.

Now fold the Dot and Dash in half vertically and place the three largest dies just on the fold so that they hold together when you die cut them. 

Open your largest folded Heart circle, and score and fold one panel in half to create an easel card base - this will be the anchor for your cards.

Cut out your flowers, foliage and small butterfly from the scrap and save the little hearts that fall out from the big circle.

From the white card stock, cut out three further matching Heart Circles to mount on your folded paper ones.

Cut out the large butterfly from a piece of red card stock whilst it is in the die colour through the die the parts you would like to be white with a white pen. 

Now ink the whole die cut butterfly with Versamark and emboss with crystal embossing powder. 

Use the Pearl Poppy ink pad to stamp your sentiment onto the large white Heart Circle and mount onto the largest heart circle mini easel. 

Layer up the remaining white card heart circles onto the two smaller mini easels.

Arrange your flowers, foliage and butterflies using a brad for the centre of the larger flower before you glue and some Cosmic Shimmer Pearl to decorate the smaller butterfly.

For my last and smallest flower I used some of the scrap to die cut the smallest heart circle.

There - I told you it was easy. Enjoy!

Linda x

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A Host of Golden Daffodils

This stamp is exclusive to Crimson Cloud and is from our new Easter/Spring range.

Spring is my favourite time of year and daffodils my favourite spring flower.

They stand in defiance of the cold winter and trumpet the heralding of spring.

Naturally, then, one of my favourite poems written by William Wordsworth is “Daffodils”. The sentiment in this stamp is a line from this poem.

“Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance”

Add these all together and you have the inspiration for this symbolic stamp.

I coloured the image with Copics, and matted and layered using the Creative Expressions Foundations range paper. I love the yellow and green - such cheery colours for Spring!

Hope you like it!
Linda x

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3 for £10 - part 2

Here is part 2 of the "3 for £10" challenge. As I mentioned yesterday, the challenge assumes you have some basics such as ink pads, cardstock, dies etc.

My second card for the challenge is the Crystal Butterfly Stepper Card.

Take a 12"x12" sheet of white card stock and cut lengthways so you have a sheet that is 6"x12".

Score lengthways at 5" and 10". Fold along both score lines. You will be left with a 2" strip along the bottom.

 From your other piece of card, cut a strip that is 4" x 6" and score and fold in half at the 2" line.

Attach this smaller piece of card to the 2" flap on the main card base. You will now have a stepper card.

Take your A4 sheet of Lilac Foundations patterned paper

 Cut a square and mount on the large front face of the card.

Print off the digi stamp of the Gemstone Butterfly at 4.5" high on lightweight cardstock. 

The circles of the digi stamp are ideal for using as a template for the gems from the Crystal Wheel

 Cut out the butterfly and ink around the edges. Using small dots of glue, attach the gems to the butterfly.

*Why not try - using glitter glue, or pearl pva instead of gems on the butterfly template?

Attach the butterfly to the front of the card and use some die cut shapes to matt and layer. Attach two Crimson Cloud small paper roses

to the corners of the card and glue gems to their centres.

Cut a small rectangle of patterned  and attach to the small front face of the card. Cut another smaller strip and punch holes along the length using a ribbon strip punch.

Using the same method as yesterday's project, dye a length of Vintage Ribbon

with a lilac ink pad to match your patterned paper. Thread the ribbon along your punch strip and tie in a bow. Decorate with the hat pins

and attach to the front of the card.

Check back tomorrow for the final part of the "3 for £10" series.

Mel xxx

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3 for £10

This month we were asked to produce three cards for £10 for Creative Cardmaking magazine - quite a challenge!! The challenge presumes that you have some basic products - card blanks, ink pads, dies etc - but stamps and embellishments must come out of the budget.

I decided (rather optimistically looking at the weather today!!) to give my three cards a spring theme.

The first card is called "Spring Swallows":

Fold A4 white cardstock in half to create your card base.

Cut Creative Expressions Foundations range Aqua patterned paper slightly smaller than the front of your card and attach.

Print out your  "Swallows"   digistamp onto light white cardstock.

Die cut an oval and blend some inks around the edges to create your Spring sky. Colour the swallows (I used Promarkers).

Matt and layer your image with die cut ovals and swirls.

Take half a yard of the Vintage Ribbon.

Rub some ink onto your craft mat and spritz with water. Rub the ribbon in the ink to colour it. Dry ribbon with heat gun.

Tie the ribbon into a bow and attach to the top of the card.

Decorate the card with some of the hat pins

and Crimson Cloud paper roses

* Top Tip - use the same ink you used for the sky to dye the ribbon to make sure your project is colour coordinated.

Check back tomorrow to see part two of the "3 for £10" challenge.
Mel xx Pin It Now!

Handbags Galore!

We are sponsoring the “Allsorts” blog challenge this week - the theme is “Paper Piecing” and is the inspiration behind this project.

Handbags Galore, every girlie girl's dream. Except this time it is the range of Creative Expressions stamps and sentiments we have used to create this very cute card, resisting of course the instinct for pink!

The Foundations paper range ‘dots and stripes’ also helped not to overdose on the girly part.

Spellbinders Nestabilities Twisted Metal Tags and Accents create some interest in the corners. 

Along with the Spellbinders Heart Squares providing the layers as background for the purses. 

We also used the Spellbinders Ribbon Tags Trio

to stamp the sentiment and tied with the beautiful Creative Expression Wrinked Edge Ribbon in white:

For the finale we used our own Crimson Cloud Black Roses

Good luck and remember we would love to see and comment on your interpretations.

Mel xx

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone - hope you have recovered from the festivities!
This week we are sponsoring the Penny Black at Allsorts challenge.
The theme is Love and Hearts.
Here is our submission:

I decoupaged the main image - the beautiful Penny Black "Love is the Message" stamp

I matted the image onto a die cut layer using Spellbinders Nestabilities Heart Squares

I threaded some Vintage Ribbon around the edges:

The flourishes were die cut using Spellbinders Bird Flourishes:

They were cut from the Creative Expressions Foundations Paper range:

I layered my topper onto white card which was embossed using one of the new Couture Creations embossing folders - Vintage Plumes:

 I stamped a sentiment and die cut it using Spellbinders Fancy Tags Three:

I hope you like it!
Mel x Pin It Now!

Sunday Sketch and Stamp Challenge

This week we are sponsoring the Sunday Sketch and Stamp Challenge:

This is the sketch that everyone is working to:

And this is our entry:

The three kings are from our die cuts selection:

I also used Spellbinders Lace Doily Motifs:

and the Spellbinders Banners Basics One:

The background paper comes from the Creative Expressions Foundations range:

The faux pearls around the edge are made with the Shimmer Pearl Glue - I chose Olympic Gold:

Hope you like it!
Mel xxx

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Party Time

I have been having fun playing with all the latest Spellbinders dies. They have such a wide range now that you can really mix and match them.

We also now stock the Foundations paper range from Creative Expressions. They are in lovely crisp, vibrant colours but can easily be muted down with your Distress Inks to give a completely different look.

I started off with one of the newest Spellbinder dies - Retro Mod Clocks.

At first glance they lend themselves to male cards, but I wanted to go in the opposite direction and make a really girly card with them. I cut out one of the clocks and clock face in white card and inked them up in pink. Then I decided to make corner accents using one of the separate clock hand dies, cut out eight times from pink cardstock.

To create the frame behind the clock and the frames for the sentiment, I used the Twisted Metal Tags and Accents die set.

For the background, I took a piece of the Dot and Dash Foundations paper (cerise).

I used the Dash side for the top half of the card and the Dots on the reverse for the bottom half.

To make the sentiment really stand out , I took a strip of white card, and covered it with a strip Sheer Woven Rosettes ribbon

 which gives the card real dimension.

Once I had put the card together, I added a few pearl embellishments

and finished off by "dotting" around the edges with a white pen.

Hope you like it
Mel xxx Pin It Now!