Here it is, 1 March and this is the second post for this year. So much for good intentions!

It has been quite a busy year with child-minding during the school holidays and each week since schools returned.  A trip away to the south of the South Island  for a few days - thank goodness we are still able to travel within our own country during this challenging time. However, I can say that I have been making things during this time.

I have been making a few quilty things and decided recently not to begin anything new until I have completed the things that are waiting to be finished. 

 I made a couple of quilts for Christmas presents - a full sized quilt for my daughter-in-law and a wall hanging for my grandson, Max. He is always admiring a Lone Star wall hanging I have in my bedroom so I made one for him to hang on his wall.  I shall post them on my Quilting Projects page. 

Card making has taken a second place over the last couple of years as I have become more involved with patchwork. However, I still enjoy making some cards and still take a card making class monthly at the local library. 

Here is a selection of recent cards.

 This was a birthday card for my husband. I used CTMH papers and die cut the leaves and coloured them with distress oxide inks, with a final coating of UTEE (clear).

These two cars were made using distress oxide inks with multiple layers of colours and spritzed with water. Overstamped with Poppy stamp. 

This card was made with die cut flowers, leaves and wreath. I embossed the background with a CTMH embossing folder. I die cut the two layers of the Happy greeting and stamped the birthday. I used Nuvo drops for the centres of the flowers and the dots on the card.

More next week! Stay well and stay safe!

What have I been doing for the last 6 months?

You may well ask! New Zealand has been in the grip of a global pandemic and for 6 weeks or so, we were in total lockdown - no socialising with family or friends, no group meetings, no shopping! Fortunately, I was able to go to the supermarket to get groceries, but it was certainly a strange situation. So what did we do?

Well, the garden looked good for a few weeks, before the autumn set in and the leaves started gathering on the ground. The craft room got a good going over and various bits and pieces sorted, tidied up or thrown out. Stamp sets were sorted and catalogued and fabrics sorted into colours!


I have done a bit of sewing and some card making. I have also made a couple of albums, which are awaiting completion.

Some of the sewing projects I have done can be seen on my Quilting page. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the most recent projects.

Here is a card I made for a teenager.

The card is  5" x 7" card and I used a skateboarder silhouette I downloaded from the internet for the image. I decided to do it in a grey colour rather than black as it went better with the other colours. The papers I used were from the Urban papers set from Close to my Heart. The stamp set used is Urban Flair, also from CTMH. The Happy birthday stamp is from a set from Ranger - Letter it Clear Stamps. I embossed the greeting with Weathered Wood Distress Embossing powder. It gives a dull finish to the embossing and is more suited for this card than a shiny embossing powder.

Fun with new Colours!

Loving the new colours from Close to My Heart which have just been released. Favourites at the moment are Wisteria and Julep.

Wisteria

Julep

 Both colours also come with matching ink pads and re-inkers!







I had a play with these colours which coordinate with the new Every Little Thing paper pack.

















The stamps I used were from the September Stamp of the Month - Random Acts of Cardness. I love this set and you can get it from me only in September 2019!









Here are the cards I made. Note they are all using the same basic design, just changed up a little with direction and sentiment.

                                                       

Please let me know if you want to know more about the new catalogues and paper sets. The patterned paper sets are only available for two months - September and October, so don't hesitate! You can check out all the new items by going to my webshop.

Love Blossoms

Love, love, love the Love Blossoms card workshop available this month from Close to my Heart.

The kit makes 12 cards and envelopes with enough materials left over to make the layers for at least another 6-8 cards. You can buy additional cards and envelopes to complete them.

The stamp set that comes with the workshop is stunning too. It includes the beautiful floral stamps as well as the shading for the flowers and a wide range of greetings.

The workshop is available until the end of March so if you are interested, please let me know. 

2018 A New Year!

A New Year means a new start! At least I hope so...

I don't set new year resolutions as I never end up keeping them but I do need to start blogging again regularly as it makes me think more creatively and action my thoughts about what I can do.

I was asked to make some cards recently so I thought I would share these.

I used a Make it now card from Cricut Access and changed the wording on it.

The card is all from Close to my Heart and I used a pen to write the wording with the Cricut Maker.

This was a special birthday card for a little three year old who loves buses. I used the Cricut Maker to cut the bus from card then layered it on paper from CTMH. I used the pen in the Maker to write the words on the side of the bus.

I really like this card and have made it a few times before, but this time I used patterned paper from CTMH for the coloured layers.

I stamped the sentiment using Thistle coloured ink to match the background layers.

I added white faux stitching to the hearts to make them a little more defined.








Watch this space for more posts this year!

Happy Birthday Cards!

This week was our regular meeting for the craft group I set up when I retired about seven years ago.
The group is still going, even though some of the people have changed, there is still a few people who keep coming. They are really nice people and I treasure their crafting friendship and company.

For our meeting this week, I made up some card kits using papers from the Jack, No Worries and Hello Lovely collections in the recent Close to My Heart Seasonal Expressions Ideas book.The designs for the card were based on designs in the Happy Times Card Workshop created some time ago by Michelle Snyder for CTMH.

For the first card, I used paper from the Jack collection along with ruby, juniper and white daisy cardstock. The trim is black and gold.
The stamp is from  the Birthday Sparkles set, B1537.

















The second card used the No Worries collection, with white daisy. I also used the zip strip from the striped sheet for the flags on the side of the card. I stamped two daisies using the May SOTM (S1705) and canary ink, and the leaves from the same set in New England Ivy.  I coloured the images and cut them out, layering the daisies and adding a sequin to the centre. The sentiment is from the Birthday sparkles set and I stamped that in Sapphire.









The last card we made was the most popular one. The paper is from the Hello Lovely collection and I teamed it with Sorbet, Fern and Colonial White cardstock. I also used Fern twine,  green shimmer trim and sparkles to finish the card. The flower was stamped using Sorbet ink and the image is from the May SOTM as are the leaves, stamped with New England Ivy. The greeting was also stamped with New England Ivy.  

Card with Tag

I just love cards with tags on them as you can arrange them in different ways, layering, pop dotting and so on.

This lovely card with a tag and a floral embellishment is another available at PCW here.

The card file comes with several layers and elements, making it very easy to cut with your electronic cutter and to put together.

The base card is cut from Close to my Heart Glacier cardstock and Lagoon and Pacific for the top layers. The tags were cut from Glacier and the scalloped circle from Lagoon. I used White Daisy for the circles and Pixie and Pear for the floral embellishments.

To finish off the card, I used sparkling dots on the flower and top tag.

Water Colour Resist

One of the on-line groups I belong to (Crafty NZ Card Makers)  has a monthly swap where we send a card to one of the other members of the group. The theme for the swap this month is water colour resist so I got out my Close to my Heart stamps and water colours and had a play. Very pleased with the result!

I stamped the top layer (water colour card from CTMH) using one of the stamps from the Brushstrokes set (C608) and Versamark ink, then used clear embossing powder to create the resist.

I used a wash of four different colours to create the background. I wanted it to be quite pastel so added extra water to the paints.

I then stamped the balloons and sentiments onto the top layer using Black Archival ink. These stamps are from the Happy Everything set (D1653).

To finish the card, I layered the top layer onto pale blue card then attached it to the base card, adding a blue ribbon before sticking it down.

I really need to keep using these watercolour paints as they tone perfectly with the CTMH range of cardstock and are so easy to use without getting too messy.

Lovely Layout for Paper Crafting World

The challenge this month over at Paper Crafting World is Anything Goes and the optional twist is to include a snowflake. Well, here in New Zealand at the moment, there is no snow (thank goodness) because it is the middle of summer and the temperature today was 28 degrees C!

So my contribution today reflects where I am  and has lovely flowers instead of snowflakes. I chose the Layout 614 cutting file from PCW and cut it using my Cricut Explore. I used a variety of cardstock from Close to my Heart including Colonial White, pomegranate and pixie.  I added perfect pearls liquid to the centres of the flowers.

I love the way the branches curve around the photo mat to emphasise the focal point of the layout!

The stamp used is a sentiment from a CTMH set - Your own kind of wonderful, which is still available for purchase from your CTMH consultant - Melin if you are in the USA and myself if you are in New Zealand!

Don't forget to visit the other posts by the talented design team this month!

Valentine Card

Hello again!
Today I wanted to share with you the card I made using the cutting file from Paper Crafting World available here. This week the cutting file is available for just $1.

For this card I used a white daisy base card, black layers, white daisy layers and pomegranate layers. All the card is from the Close to My Heart range.
The chevron striped card is from the La Vie en Rose collection also available from CTMH. The sentiment on the heart is from this mon th's Stamp of the Month - Beloved Bouquet available until 31 January from CTMH.

All layers were cut using the svg file and my Cricut Explore.

To complete the card I added some bling on the heart shape and the corner of the card.

This is a lovely simple design but so effective when it is put together. It would look lovely in other colour schemes as well.

Do go over to Paper Crafting World and check out the beautiful designs - cutting files, digital images and scrapbook layouts. There is a special on at the moment as well! Check out our challenge for this month as well.

Paper Garden

Really excited about the CTMH stamp set for September! It is called Paper Garden and it has some beautiful silhouette style flower and leaf stamps that have words and designs as part of the stamped image. Very distressed looking and a bit different from the usual stamps from CTMH.

I made some cards using stamps from this set. 

 Love the effect with the black ink on the green background. 

For the card below, I used the same stamp with Versamark ink and embossed it with white embossing powder. The effect is different, but still lovely.

The last card is one I made for a swap. This is a trifold card. I used the blossom paper pack for this one and stamped the flowers with Pixie Exclusive Ink and the leaves with New Leaf ink. I cut them out using my scissors, but these flowers and leaves are now on the newest Cricut cartridge from CTMH, Cricut Artistry. I am looking forward to purchasing this one very soon. It will be available from August 1.

The greeting on the front is from the Happy Hexagons set, one of the hostess gift sets from CTMH and stamped with Pomegranate, one of the new colours from CTMH.