Babies

Yesterday, rather earlier than expected, a little boy was born. So to celebrate this fantastic event I've made him a card.

The stamp can be bought here.

The ribbon here.

I've entered the card in the Alphabet Challenge, I is for Infants, I found a challenge in the end and it's just perfefect.

Stop Craft challenge, and

Elephantastic Challenge, both of which are, New Beginnings

Sew Many Cards Challenge - New Things

No Challeges as yet

How will I cope today? As yet I've not found a challenge that I can enter. There is one on Fussy friday but that will take time to do so you may not see it until tomorrow.

If, I've missed one, dear reader, then please, please, let me know.

Blue Fairy

Today is a productive day as I am already on my second card. I wanted to enter the Moving Along with the Times challenge for; 'Birthday with circles'. I have made a lovely card with ovals but I guess that it just won't do so here is one that is definately right for the theme.

The stamp is available here.

Forgotten Stamps

Sometimes a much loved stamp gets forgotten in the jumble that is my stamp collection and it can emerge in a much needed tidy up. This beautiful glamour girl is one of those lost treasures. I've done somrthing different with her today as I've used lots of elements that I don't usually associate with a glamourous figure, gingham being one of those.


If you really love this stamp you can get the stamp here.
The gingham ribbon here.
As I chose the colours that are in the Colour Create challenge 61 - Pink, red and white it is entered in that today.

Poppy Card for the New Year

Well, Christmas may be over but the year goes on and I thought that I would keep the Christmas colours going for a while with this green, red and cream card. The poppy is always a popular flower and it lends itself so well to this colour theme too.

The stamp is from Stampinback and available here.
The ribbon is available here.
The sentiment is from I Brake for Stamps and is available here.

I've entered this in the Craft Your Passion Challenge 38.

Crafty Ann's Challenge blog anything goes.

City Crafter challenge blog. Stamp it out.

Little Red wagon, Leftovers

Happy crafting

A Very Special Thank You

Post Christmas is the time for thank you cards so here's one to kick off the season.

If you want to make something similar with this fabulous stamp from I Brake for Stamps then you can get the stamp sheet here. It is only £11 for a sheet of 9 stamps of varying sizes.

The willow stitched ribbon is here.

The thank you stamp is here.

The image is stamped in Stazon and coloured with Art and Graphic pens from Kuretake available here.
This card is entered in the

Papertake Weekly challenge Be Thankful

Phindy's Place Challenge, Give Thanks

My First Easel Card

I know that this technique has been around for some time, but, this is the first one that I've ever made. So be gentle with me dear reader as it may not be up to the standard that many of you seem to achieve on the blogs that I've read.

What I like about the easle card is that it allows the recipient to see the front of the card. That, after all is what we've worked on. That's what we've spent hours trying to perfect. So let them see it!!!

If you like what you see and want to make it for yourself you can get the

rubber stamp here

the digital version here for only £1.50

the blooms here

leaves here

I've entered this in the

My Time to Craft Challenge 121, Brand Spanking New

Digital Tuesday Anything Goes

The Shabby Tea Room, Shabby Chic Baby. This requitres some fabric and I have used ribbon.

Today's Freebie Sentiment

Every week, at the Craft Fairy site, we aim to offer a free sentiment to all of the lovely crafters who visit our site. I also do my best to create a card to go along with the sentiment. So here is the latest for you to see.



I also saw a fab challenge on Mojo Monday challenge blog that I used as my layout for the i card so without further ado her is the card. If you want the saying as a free download then click here.

Fairy or Angel?

Fairy or Angel? I actually think that this fits both categories. I've been waiting to do something with this beautiful stamp for a while and today I came up with this.


Stamp can be bought here.
Ribbon here
I Brake for Stamps sentiment here

This is entered in the Crafty Creations 'Angel 'challenge.
the AiFactory challenge.

Vintage image birthday card.

The challenge on Creative Craft Challenges and on Papertake Weekly is 'Anything goes'. Now that might seem like an easy challenge, but it means that you have to think for yourself. Not an easy thing in my case. So I've decided to go with this vintage stamp as a focus for my card. She is so sweet and I love the age old feel of this card.
There is also a sketch and an invitation to
'Frame it' on the Truly Scrumptious blog so I'll enter that as well. Just to make things even better I'll also enter it for the
Think Ink challege 34 on Artful Inkables. I think that I'm too late for the entry to count but it's the thought that counts.
Next there's the Crafts and Me challenge for anything goes.
Top Tip Tuesday is for embellishing and I think that this card fits that bill too.

Flowers from a selection that can be seen here.

16 mm satin ribbon from here. The colour is rosy mauve.

The stamp is from a set of children's ATC's avilable here

My what an elegant card

The title of this is, 'My what an elegant card'. I gave it that title as that's what my husband said when he saw it. That is really a compliment as he never really says anything in particular. I feel very flattered and I have Mojo Monday, sketch 170 to thank for inspiring me to do this one. I just loved the take that Julee Tilman did so this is why you see this in front of you.


To make this card you will need:
Large ivory curly roses., which can be bought here.
Tan brown rose leaves from here.
Stampinback floral silhouette available here.

Hope that you like it as much as hubby!

Yvonne

Fit Fairy for a challenge

Don't you just love this Fit Fairy? She is one of the series of fairy rubber and digital stamps from Craft Fairy and she fits in with this sketch perfectly. The challenge is Sketch and Stash challenge 51.
I used the sketch from Sketch and Stash catalogue as the layout. You can see it below. The challenge is to use any of the sketches from the last year and this is my choice.

To make this card, I used:

The Fit Fairy, either the actual stamp or the digital is fine.

Universal twill ribbon in willow green

Flowers from Craft Fairy

Happy crafting.

Fairy Happy Birthday

How cold is it with you? I bet that it's freezing and that you wish that this awful snow would go away as soon as possible. There is a silver lining to all of this snow: you can stay inside and craft!
I've decided that the best thing to do is to enter as many challenges as I can. So I'm starting with the Stamp with Fun Challenge by Tina.
Cute Card Thursday for 'One for the Kids'
Stamp Fairy challenge. Rather appropriate for a Craft Fairy don't you think?
Digital Tuesday challenge, Let's Celebrate.

I've used the Party Fairy stamp from Craft Fairy natch, and you can get it here.

She is also available as a digital image here. At only £1.50 she is a snip and no postal costs, no waiting, and no worries that the delivery is not going to get to you as the snow has stopped play.

I used some of the craft Fairy flowers, which are here.

I coloured her in with Art and Graphic pens from Kuretake, available here
The ribbon that I used is the rosy mauve 16mm double faced satin availabe here
I hope that you like it as much as I do.
Stay warm.

Calling all gardeners.

I bet that this awful weather has upset a lot of would be gardeners. The cold has frozen the earth and stopped them all from going outside to get on with the winter work. To compensate for that I’ve made this humorous card for the gardeners in your life. Go on, give them a laugh.

To make the card you will need:
Big Daddy stamp from I Brake for Stamps. This can be bought here at Craft Fairy.
Art and Graphic pens to colour up the stamp.
A selection of papers to layer up the card
Foam pads to stick on the layers
Glue
Grosgrain ribbon which is available form Craft Fairy
Eazi-score board for making the perfect crease on your card.

I'm entering this card in the Sketch Saturday challenge. So wish me luck.

Sentimental verse freebie

Over on the Craft Fairy website we have started a freebie section. So far it has mainly been verses or funny quips. So today, I've added a verse, that I wrote, for a sentimental card. I hope that you like it. I've only printed half of the verse on the sample card but you can get the whole verse on the Freebies section of the Craft Fairy web site.
Happily this fits in perfectly with the theme on Allsorts challenge blog which this week is, Free and Easy. To see the challenge pop on over.

To make this card, use a 14cm x 14cm base card.

1 sheet of patterned paper 13cm x 13cm

1 piece of pink satin edged chiffon 9cm

A selection of flowers from Craft Fairy flowers section.

Tan brown leaves

Free sentiment from the freebies section on Craft Fairy

See the tutorial on corsages for a 'how to' on the rose corsage.

One important point.

The card was scored and creased using the Eazi-score board from Diamond craft.

if you want to see how to use it then click here to be taken to a set of video tutorials.

A Birthday Card for my Grandaughter

It's almost birthday time for my youngest grand daughter and I decided to get in early with her birthday card. I chose the gardening fairy for her as my littlest granddaughter may be only three but she really loves gardening. She also loves the flowers that I drew with the Kuretake pens so I decided to make a card that combines the two things that she really loves the most. Except me that is!

What you will need:
1 base card, 140mm x 140mm
Gardening Fairy Unmounted rubber stamp
Zig Kuretake tut pens in colours: 207 (for skin) 50 for stems and a variety for the fairy,
a saying.
Baby pink and pure pink Kuretake calligraphy blending pens
6 mm green gingham ribbon

This card is easy peasy to make.
Draw the flowers (see the 'Quick and Easy guide to drawing flowers with pens)
Put a strip of double sided sticky tape across the base of the card and stick the ribbon on to the card. Add a bow to the ribbon.
Stamp and colour the fairy, cut it out and use some foam pads to stick it to the card.
Add your desired sentiment and doodle around the edge of the card.
Finished.

Knitting is the new aerobics.

1. For all of you knitting mad people out there this card is just perfect.
2. She's made with Knitting Hats Hazel, a stamp from the wonderful I Brake for Stamps and she is available from Craft Fairy.
3. She is coloured in with Art and Graphic pens from Kuretake and
4. the ribbon is 16mm double faced satin from Craft Fairy
5. The saying is also from I brake for stamps.
6. If you make something with this stamp then please let me know.

Snowman and Holly for Christmas

Over the last couple of years it seems that Christmas has been geting colder and there have been far more snowmen around so the theme for this year's Christmas cards has to be: Snowman and Holly.
I decided to make it with some of the new ribbon that arrived with Craft Fairy last week.



To make this card you will need:

Snowman with checkered scarf rubber stamp from the Merry Stamper range on the Craft Fairy site.
Holly leaves
Candy Cane Christmas ribbon
Art and Graphic pens by Zig, Kuretake in colours 29 and 50
Some vintage Doodlebug paper : Jolly Holly stripe
Kuretake Calligraphy pen in silver for the border of the image and the card.
Stazon in Stone grey
14 cm x 14 cm base card in white plus extra for the stamped image
Foam pads
glue
Double sided tape

To make the card
Stamp (with Stazon), and colour your image on a spare piece of white card.
Edge the card with the silver calligraphy pen
Stick a piece of Christmas paper onto the bottom of your card.
Tie an esy bow in the ribbon and use the double sided tape to attach it to the card.
Attach the image and the holly leaves to the card with foam pads. Attahc a button to the holly leaves.
Draw a dot dash pattern on the edgeof the card as seen.
As an extra advantage I decide to enter it into the let it snow, Simon Says Challenge and the Paper Take Weekly challenge for Cut it Out.

Calligraphy Daisy Card

Some of you may have already purchased my new Flower drawing book and seen that there is a daisy added to the flowers that you can draw with the wonderful Calligraphy pens from Kuretake.




What I have shown you here is how to use the drawings to create a card.

The daisies are drawn on a piece of card which was 7 cm x 9 cm approx.
I used Butter and Rose to draw the flowers and Olive Green 56 in Art and Graphic pens to draw the stems and the leaves.
The daisy in the middle was drawn first when the second colour was at its strongest and the two others were then drawn. The lighter colour on the two flowers either side give some appearance of recession.
The card was then edged in the gold metalic calligraphy pen to make it look as if it had a border.
Finally I added someof the new 16 mm satin ribbon in willow to give the card some texture and luxury and a saying to finish it off.

Read My Lips Lucille

I just had to make a card out of this fabulous stamp, Read my Lips Lucille. I've had her for a while, but I really wanted a good saying to go with her. I found the one that I've added here and neadless to say, I'm over the moon. The stamp is on sale at my Craft Fairy site and it is made by the wonderful Della from I Brake for Stamps. Her Humerous Senior range is the original and the best too.

What you will need:
1 base card, 140mm x 140mm
Contrasting card for layering
Read my Lips Lucille stamp
Zig Kuretake tut pens in colours: 207 (for skin), 56, 23, 49
A button for the corner
A saying.
Feel free to copy the one that I've used. I printed it out on the computer, cut it out and layered it up.
16mm scarlet satin ribbon for the centre of the card.

I really didn't think that this lady needed my usual pinks so I went for no nonsense colours, but because it is nearly Christmas I added some reds too.

Super fun Christmas

This is a card for the grumpy old ladies in us all.

Are you all getting ready for Christmas? If you are then here’s a rather different card for you to make this month. It’s a funny one for a change.




You will need: 1 base card 140mm x 140mm,
I used white linen card.
1 piece of white card 1 piece of red card
1 piece of doodlebugs jolly holly paper
1 length of 9mm red saddle stitch ribbon
1 sentiment and the package lady stamp from the 'Censorship' sheet of unmounted rubber stamps.
Stazon in Stone Gray
A selection of pens to colour the image.
H2O waterbrush from Kuretake.
paper glue 3d foam pads.

To make the card Stamp the image onto a piece of white linen card. Colour it in and trim the card to leave a fairly generous border around the image. Stick the image card to the red card and trim to leave a thin border. Stamp the sentiment onto another piece of white card and mount onto red card and trim to leave a similar size border. Cut a piece of jolly holly paper to cover about a 1/3rd of the card and stick to the base card. Tie a knot in the ribbon and use it to cover the join. Stick the images to the card with 3d foam pads.

Getting ready for the NEC in November

Now, I know that it's a couple of weeks away, but you can never be too ready and the Hobbycrafts fair at the NEC is so big that it needs a lot of thought.

So.... if you can think of ways that I can make things better for the fair and your experience better too then leave a comment.

Port Sunlight and the Happy Stampers

Craft Fairy is off to Liverpool to set up at the Happy Stampers show in Port Sunlight. This is one of the best shows of the year as it is attended by such dedicated stampers and organised so well by such lovely people. I really can't wait!

See you all there.

A break from the norm

Cards for men are always so difficult to find so this should really help you all out. It's not the usual pretty card that I bring to you today, but a real bruiser of a card with a clear man sized message.






Don't you think that this will make a perfect card for the man in your life?

If you want to make it then you will need a 140mm x 140mm base card
Some man coloured paper
The Hypertension Harold Unmounted rubber stamp
Stazon in Stone Grey
Kuretake Art and Graphic pens Nos 260, 71, 8, 82.
Water pen.

The rest is up to you.

Who's Going to Ally Pally

Hands up if you're going to go to Ally Pally.

If you are, why not come along and visit us at the Craft Fairy stand.

We'll have lots of fantastic ribbons, buttons and bows as well as our huge range of paper flowers at knock down prices.

See you there.

Join me at the Art Stamps Fair at Newbury

Join me at the Art Stamps Fair at Newbury this wekend where I will be holding lots of Make and Take sessions on the Craft Fairy stand. What I will show everyone is how to make gift bags without needing to measure anything.

This is just an example of what you can make. I'll add more if I have the time today or tomorrow.

Lots of New Flowers Have Arrived

After months of negotiating with a company in Thailand the first of our own, Craft Fairy, brand of paper flowers have arrived.

These three packets are just three of the nine new colours that we have in stock.

Now, I chose the colour combinations myself. Did I make good choices? You tell me in your comments.

Back at Last

I must admit that I've not blogged for quite a while as the shows have taken me away from the computer. I do miss it though and so I am getting on with creating again. This is today's effort which uses the fantastic hydrangea stamp from Time To Stamp that is made by I Brake for Stamps.

To make it:

1. Colour the hydrangea stamp with the Art and Graphic Pens from Kuretake and stamp it twice, colouring up between stamping. Use the H2O water brush to move the paint a little and added some extra colour where the shadows should be.I cut the images out and then got on with the rest of the card.
2. Cut a base card 10.5cm x 28cm. Score this at the 14cm point to make a card 10.5cm x 14cm when folded.
3. Cut a piece of pink card and scored it and then cut it to fit over the join in the base card.
4. Stamp the message, which is from the Inspirational sayings plate, on a piece of card and cut it out to leavea a small border. Mounted this on to a piece of pink card. This was then stuck to the base card.
5. Stick the hydrangea images slightly overlapping on to the card with a mixture of adhesive and foam pade. The adhesive was for the bottom hydrangea and the foam pads for the upper image.
6. Decorated the lower part of the card with a broken line of green, use one of the greens that used on the stamp for colour continuity.

New Header

Have you noticed that we've got a new header? Don't you just love the fairy.? She's also the new logo on the Craft Fairy site so you'll see a lot more of her in the future.

I'd love to hear what you have to say about her so leave your comments for me to read.

A Corsage from Paper Flowers

Recently I've taken delivery of a large number of fantastic paper flowers and they are too wonderful to leave untouched in boxes until they sell. So I've decided to put my floristry training into practice and show everyone how to use the flowers to make a corsge.

You will need to set out what you need to start with:

On my table I had small yellow (it said yellow on the packet but they really are cream!) rose buds.

Small open tea roses in cream.

Medium open tea roses in fuchsia.

Large curly roses in Cream.

A couple of green hydrangea petals and some tacky glue.

First of all I cut the green flower in four as seen below.

Then I layered the smaller roses as shown below. Start with the smallest flower at the top and gradually wor down to the largest of the three.

Now twist the stems together.

Add some glue to the base of the leaf .

Glue behind the flowers as seen below.

Repeat the same steps with flowers and leaves for the other side. Lay them on the table and cross over at the centre point.


Put the large rose in the centre and then twist the wires together at the back of the corsage so that they lie flat. At this point, this is what you'll end up with.

However, I decided that it looked a little empty in the middle so I glued some green petals behind the central flower and I was happy with the way that it looked.

Challenge 82 - Kids Kardz!

I know that I don't very often make cards for boys but this time I'm making the exception because it lets me use this great stamp from the Kids Collection by The Merry Stamper.

This card was made for

Challenge 82 - Kids Kardz!

on My Time to Craft.
This fab boy stamp is from the set of Sketch kids stamps from The Merry Stamper.
I also used some of our highly desired dinosaur ribbon.
Some Kuretake Art and Graphic, double ended pens for the colouring and a waterbrush for the shading.

I do hope that you like this effort as I know what a pain it is to make cards for boys and I hope that any slug hunter that gets it will love it too.

How chuffed am I, I've just had one of my tutorials added to the Inspirational Tipe, Techniques and Tutorials blog.







So please check it out for mine and other great tutorials.

Fennel Seed Head Card

The challenge on Our Creative Corner this week is for something old that's new. Well, like almost everyone else I've got lots of things in my stash that are old and neglected. In my case it's a brayer. I bought one some time ago and I've not been able to master it at all. So this card is for you to see how you can use those bits of card that you practise on and think aren't good enough.

I am often asked for cards for men and it is always difficult to come up with anything for them. So much of the stuff in the shops is covered with beer mugs that I decided to go for something refreshing and natural. Flowers are out for most men but seeds and weeds seem to be fine. This is what you get in this card.

What you will need:


Fennel Seed Head from Stampinback
Pieces of waste card from when you've been learning to use a brayer
or some nice paper
Stazon in Stone Grey
Sentiment stamp from I Brake for Stamps
Light duck egg blue ribbon from Craft Fairy
Toning background paper for the base of the card

Happy crafting

Ribbon Flower Tutorial 2

Well! The response to my last flower tutorial was huge so it's spurred me on to do another one and as we have just added fabulous satin dot ribbons to the Craft Fairy site this was an opportunity to use them too.

So above, is the finished flower and now I'm sure that you all want to see how I made it.

First you will need to assemble your ingredients:

On my table I had:
4 strips of hot pink satin swiss dot ribbon each measuring 15 cm.
A few buttons. I hadn't yet decided which ones to use. You will need one bigger than the other though.
Cotton
A needle. Use a sharp one.
Start your flower by putting some glue on one end of the ribbon:

Fold it to the centre add glue to the other end and fold that to the centre too. Your ribbon should overlap and form a loop that the glue holds together in the centre.



Once you've done this you can layer up the pieces as seen in the picture below and now you're almost ready to sew them together.

I played around with the buttons that I had on the table and I finally chose a pink and a green button as I liked the way that they looked.
You need to be aware that you are sewing a lot of layers of ribbon together so that's why you will need a sharp needle. I started by sewing just two pieces together to get the position right.


Now layer up the pieces and sew together. Add your buttons and sew together and your flower is ready to go...

A necklace for a change

This post is a bit of self indulgence as I made myself a necklace and I wanted to share it so I decided to add it to my blog.

I bought some beads for Sandra's Accessories and she had a similar necklace on show and I decided that it looked easy enough to make. It was and here is the evidence.

It's not the best photograph as it's a scan but the light wasn't good enough to tahe a photograph.

Watercolour flowers with Kuretake Calligraphy pens

When I was at a recent show many people loved the calligraphy pens but they didn't think that they would be clever enough to use them for writing. So here's another use for calligraphy pens that needn't frighten you.
First of all you'll need at least two calligraphy pens in toning colours. I've used a light and a dark one from the Heart pouch set.
What I then did was touch the side of the lightest pen with the dark pen.

This will allow you to write in two colours.

I kept the darker edge of the pen still and moved the light side in a rough quarter turn and got a petal. I then moved the paper a bit and repeated the above. I did this until I got about 5 petals. Just remember to move the paper round every time you want a new petal.