08/08/2011 by Gwyneth.

Cards

Only three new cards to show you this time.  One was easy to make as the pieces were cut out using my CraftROBO, the other two had some fiddly, landlocked, areas to cut out, so not quite so easy to do, and difficult for anybody with dexterity problems.

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1. Strawberry Print and CUT by Luanne Collins (This design is from a Print and Cut, cutting file for the CraftROBO so no intricate cutting involved.  The sheet has lots more strawberry themed toppers so please click through on the link to see them all.)
2. Floating Deckchair by Diana Hutchinson  (There is a bit of intricate tugging involved in cutting out the landlocked areas within the deckchair frame, so it isn’t the easiest of cards to make if you have any dexterity problems, especially as there are two deckchairs to cut out for the front and back of the floating image, and they need to match up when cut out.)
3. Babys Crib by Angela Wake (The most difficult pieces to cut out on this design are the little heart shaped, landlocked areas, in the headboard of the crib.  I used a craft knife and a lot of care to get these pieces out.)

Jewellery:

Only two pieces of jewellery this time.  Hands have been playing up and it took me a week to get the necklace done as I couldn’t apply enough pressure to the crimp beads to keep the floating beads in place.

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1. A hair comb decorated with pearl effect flowers and round beads and small seed beads.
2.  This is a simple necklace of seven beads floating on a gold tigertail wire, with crimp beads and gold crimp bead covers on either side of each bead. This photo doesn’t do the beads justice as they have a really lovely, rich red, satin finish to them.

CUP Update: 

Competition  -  Even though the closing date for entries is the 20th August, there are a lot of crafters who are quick off the mark this time with over 30 entries already in.  You can see those already entered by going to the competition gallery - here. The rules are also visible at the top of the same page for anybody who’s interested in entering. Once the entries are all in the voting will start, with the winner being announced on August 31st.

Craftsuprint Gift Vouchers - If you are looking for a little, or not so little, gift for a friend who’s into crafting then have you considered a Craftsuprint Gift Vouchers.  The vouchers come in values from £5 to £50 and can be found on the craftsUprint site -> here. Don’t forget that it isn’t just card makers that the CUP site caters for - there are designs for knitting and cross stitch, all sorts of papercraft designs including scrapbooking, in addition to kits, sheets, inserts, backgrounds, etc., for card makers.  Of course you could forget the friends and start dropping hints now amongst family members that you want a really big voucher as a gift for Christmas!

You can see the cards I’ve made using design sheets from CUP in my “Crafter Showcase Area” on Craftsuprint.com - here
(Just scroll down past the top boxes to see the cards.)

-oOo-

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06/08/2011 by Gwyneth.

My Latest Cards:

None of today’s cards have any decoupage or any intricate cutting.  Click on the card images to see larger pictures and then click “Back” in your browser to come back here.  Or you can click on the links underneath to go to the page where the sheets used to create the cards can be seen.

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1. Lighted Christmas Ornaments with Drum Pyramid Sheet by Carol Lepard and White Candle vellum by Deborah Davies (Easy card to make as just a straight edge to cut for the pyramid and straight trimming to make the base card.)
2. A4 new baby on pastel shawl for boy or girl by Susan Alison (For this card I simply printed the A4 sheet out at a little smaller than half size so that it fit on an A5 card with some matting and layering.  A quick and simple card to make.)
3. New baby on pastel shawl insert with two oval spaces by Susan Alison (This is the insert I put into the baby card.  Again just print, trim, score and fold before giving the corners a quick punch and sticking in.  What could be simpler?)
4. White Beauty by Deborah Davies (As there were lots of layers on the sheet I used to make this I just separated them every other layer to make two cards.  This kept the profile of each card low for posting.)
5. Cloudy sky with yellow field by Silvia Griffin (I printed this background out at under A5 size and simply trimmed, matted and layered it to make a card, just putting a greeting on top.  What could be easier?)

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1. She was proud of her borders. Dog gardener. Wavy Stacker by Susan Alison (The wavy edge of the stacker is the most difficult bit to cut out on any of the cards on display here, and that isn’t hard to cut at all.  It’s a lovely image of a sheepdog in a garden.)

CUP Update: 

Competition  -  Entries are already coming in for the “August 2011 Pet Card Competition”.  There are 20 to be seen in the competition gallery - here - as I’m writing this. The rules are also visible at the top of the same page for anybody who’s interested in entering.  Entry will be open until 20th August for anybody who’s interested, and then the voting will start.

Mailer - The latest update mailer from CUP can be seen by clicking - here.  Lots of designs to be seen, plus - for those who like to do Iris Folding but don’t like the cutting out of the shaped aperture - there are cutting files with matching Iris Folding patterns.

You can see the cards I’ve made using design sheets from CUP in my “Crafter Showcase Area” on Craftsuprint.com - here
(Just scroll down past the top boxes to see the cards.)

-oOo-

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03/08/2011 by Gwyneth.

My Latest Cards

Firstly I’ve got a Silver Wedding card I made for my sister and brother-in-law to show you.

I used the Glitter Girls Bookatrix board and made up an open book with four layers in various mirror, glitter and iridescent card-stock.  Rather than just make an open book and display this on a stand, I made a base card from an A3 sheet of Centura Pearl Snow White card scored and folded into an A4 tent fold card.  The open book was then stuck onto the centre of this using Pinflair Glue Gel.  The whole thing is decorated with some of the Glitter Girls peel-offs, flexi bend peel-offs, silver ribbon and a bow made from the same silver ribbon.

“Penblwydd Priodas Hapus” is Welsh for “Happy Wedding Anniversary”.

I didn’t have any large 25 numbers left in silver, and have unfortunately run out of my silver sticky back vinyl for cutting designs out with my CraftROBO, so I did something a little different.  I  put a silver butterfly peel-off on the right hand side of my card and stuck the numbers 25 three times amongst the patterns on its wings.  See if you can spot them in this closeup of the panel.

There follows the latest cards I’ve made using cutting files, design sheets, and a background from the craftsUprint site.  I’m really pleased with how they all turned out, but I think that the 3rd one with the butterflies is my current favourite.  Please do click on it to have a closer look and then click Back to come back here, or even click on the link below the pictures to see information on the cutting file I used.

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1. BIRDS OVER THE EDGE CARD by Clive Couter (As this is a cutting file design my CraftROBO did all the hard work of cutting out the images. I’ve used lots of different finishes on previous “over the edge” cards of this type, but this time I decided to keep it really simple and just use a mirror paper behind the cutout images for a striking silhouette effect.  You can see the different effects I’ve used before in previous blog posts here and here.)
2. The Big CATS by Sarah Lake (Just straight cutting for the main image and oval cutting for the layers, so nothing very difficult required to make this card.  I think that this is a good card for a man.)
3. Butterly Oval Frame by Anne Huxter and Leaves by Sarah Lake (A quick base card was made by just printing out the leaves background, trimming, scoring and folding.  The butterfly oval frame and little butterflies were cut out using my CraftROBO so the only fiddly bits were poking out some of the little landlocked areas from the butterfly wings using my pokey tool.  A quick spray with a mica mist for one layer and a dollop of glue rubbed all over and a dunk in glitter for the individual butterflies.  The whole thing really shimmers against the silver mirror paper mat.)
4. Rosea topper lace framed by Angela Wake (There’s a lot of ins and outs cutting with the scalloped edge of the pyramid layers, but no really intricate cutting, and the design is very forgiving of cutting that’s not quite perfect so long as you don’t leave white bits from outside the design in place.)

Jewellery

These are a few of the latest pieces of jewellery I’ve made.

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The stands I’ve got the jewellery displayed on were cut out using my CraftROBO using cutting files I’d created myself.  The card I’ve cut them out from were printed with the background design “Satin in Gold” by Karen Adair before putting through my CraftROBO.  You can see this background by clicking -> here.

CUP Update: 

Competition  -  OK card makers, are you ready for the next card making competition from CUP?  The title of the new competition is “August 2011 Pet Card Competition”.  The rules are:

Make any Pet Themed card using any download from Craftsuprint!
Entry will be open until 20th August and the winner will be announced on August 31st.
ONE ENTRY PER USER!
The winner will receive a specially commissioned Craftsuprint ‘August 2011′ Crystal Crafter Trophy and a £25 CUP Gift Voucher!
Everyone who enters will receive a freebie
PLEASE ENTER THE CUP NUMBER WITH YOUR UPLOAD.
Good luck!

Mailer - If you are not already getting the Update Mailer from craftsUprint via E-mail three times a week (Monday, Wednesday & Friday) then you can get them by filling in your E-mail address on the Mailing List page - here - on the craftsUprint site.  By signing up to the mailer you’ll also receive 4 exclusive FREE downloads instantly - Yes I Said FREE!  The free sheets given at the moment are by the designers Carol Clarke, Lisa Baglietto, Michael Tullio and Ann-marie Vaux.

You can see the cards I’ve made using design sheets from CUP in my “Crafter Showcase Area” on Craftsuprint.com - here
(Just scroll down past the top boxes to see the cards.)

-oOo-

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01/08/2011 by Gwyneth.

craftsUprint Cardmaking Competition

Over the last few posts I promised to show you which was my entry in the craftsUprint “July 2011 Male Birthday Competition” for card makers as soon as the voting was completed and the winner was announced.  Well here’s a picture of my entry:-

Did you guess correctly which one was mine?  If you click - here - you can read how I made the card. The sheet I used from CUP was the “Horse and Tractor Zigzag Stacker” by Sarah Edwards.  Thank you to those who gave my card their vote, and also thank you to those who’ve left such nice comments under the card.

What about the card that won the competition, which you can see by clicking - here - was it your favourite?  When you had a look through the gallery of entries did you pick it as the entry that best showed a cardmaker’s skills? Or did another card get your vote?

My Latest Cards

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1. Edges on blue background by Sally McIntyre (This card is a bit different to my usual style of card.  I raided my crafty stash to pick out an assortment so it’s got flowers and feathers and butterflies on it, as well as some faux gems.  As it is simply a background sheet printed onto good quality card-stock, trimmed and scored before folding in half to make a tent-fold base card before being randomly decorated with embellishments it is a simple card to make.)
2. What a cow by Sally McIntyre (A straight edged pyramid that’s easy to use.  In addition to the “What a cow” pyramid I used the background “Almost jewels 30” on this card.)
3. Circular Easy-position Pyramid - Fox Cub by Judith Flavel and Someplace Backing Paper 2 by Carol Lepard (With the background being straight cut and the topper being a round cut there is no intricate cutting involved in creating this card.  Even positioning the layers of the pyramid is easy as there’s a “raised” line on each layer where the next layer is to fit.)
4. Sheep by Tom Curtis (The sheet I used to make this is just full of toppers of the same image in different sizes, and all are straight cut so easy to use to make quick and simple cards, or they can be further embellished to make more ornate cards.)

You can see the cards I’ve made using design sheets from CUP in my “Crafter Showcase Area” on Craftsuprint.com - here
(Just scroll down past the top boxes to see the cards.)

-oOo-

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