Just a note - times two

The other day I sat and coloured in some Penny Black images - and subsequently made a couple of them into notelet cards. You can never have enough of those!

Here they are:

I used:

- 5.75" x 4" white card blanks, side opening

- stamped images (I used Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink) were coloured with Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and a stamp from the Penny Black 'delicate florals' set 

- the sentiment was added using the Misti, Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Paper Smooches 'Sentiment Sampler' set

- then die cut the image panel using a die from the Creative Dies 'Wonky Stitches Nesting Rectangles' set of dies

- used more white card to die cut the next size up in the same set of dies - so it was just fractionally smaller than the card front. In fact, I die cut this panel first and then trimmed the card blank to suit

- glued the plain white die cut panel to the card front

- then glued the image panel on top, after backing it with white fun foam for dimension

I do love the Penny Black 'delicate florals' stamp set - so quick and easy to colour yet (IMHO) they really do stand out in a crowd :)

Edie: The lovely Brenda from Floral Fantasies hopped in and said this would fit in with the May Penny Black and More Challenge (which is Anything Goes, always a favourite) - so I'm off to link in! Wahoo, a challenge after all!

Parsnip in stamp form

A recent copy of Craft Stamper magazine found its way into my eager little paws - and the free gift was a lovely little stamp that reminded me so much of Parsnip!

I decided it would be a nice idea to make up another little batch of gift cards to enclose with Playground prizes - this time using the 'Parsnip stamp'. I made 10 for starters:

 And here's a close up look at one of them:

I used:

- 3.25" x 3.25" square white card blanks

- the free stamp, stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- before going any further I then stamped the sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and the 'Especially for You' sentiment from LOTV's 'General Greetings - Small' set

- colouring the bear, heart and flower was such fun and really easy - using Pro markers. Plus a little tickle of Cool Grey to 'ground' him

- next I added clear Wink of Stella to the heart and also the yellow centre of the flower - needless to say it doesn't show up in the photos!

- some little white lines here and there on the flower, the bear's nose and eyes - using a Signo white pen

- having already 'sussed' that the Pro markers would bleed though the card stock I just cut slightly smaller squares of white card to fix to the inside of the card front

I already had a little batch of 3.5" x 3.5" square envelopes made up ready for these cards, thanks to the Enveloper Pro board and SaRn's lifesaving measurements. The girl's a genius!

One of these could be winging its way to you sometime soon - so keep on snippeting!

Di
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Little notelets and skipping WOYWW

Sarn's post of yesterday reminded me that I too needed to make a little batch of notelets, to enclose with Snippets Playground prizes. So, out came the snippets folder:

And just to prove I made four the same:

The light here was very 'iffy' - you can see that the blue birdie isn't anywhere as dark as the top photo implies, in fact it was an almost perfect match for the SU 'Pacific Point' ink pad I used - despite being cut from Core'dinations card.

I used:

- 4" x 4"white linen card stock

- Cheery Lynn 'Bird on a Branch 2 - A168' die plus blue and green Core'dinations snippets. To my shame I've had the die for months now and this is the first time I've thought to use it, bad girl, although I did think about 'grounding' the branch on the edge of the card at least

- little pink flowers, punched from another little snippet using a Tonic 'small flower' punch then teeny Mei Flower self-adhesive pearls popped on

- sentiment is an Elzybells one (sadly discontinued when they closed down), stamped using SU's 'Pacific Point'

- a little piece of pink Ric Rac tied round - found in a bundle of pink ribbons I bought ages ago from Art of Craft

Am skipping WOYWW this week - need to go and collect those flipping school newsletters from the printers and get down to some serious 'envelope stuffing' :(

Then comes the 'fun' part - our local post offices are either closed down or quite a walk from the car. 600 newsletters adds up to about three mahoosive sackfuls and Superwoman ain't my middle name - so I cheat by splitting the loads into much smaller lots and packing them into heavy duty cotton shopping bags, bought just for the purpose. And then (ssshhh) sneaky me drives round North Hampshire posting as many as possible at a time into the biggest red post boxes available...........usually under cover of darkness or in Summer, when the evenings are so much lighter, wearing huge sunglasses and a big floppy hat :) 

Di
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Amazing what you find.......

.....whilst rootling for something totally different. I came across a few notelets in amongst a box of embellishments that had obviously been squirrelled away ages ago - and as a quick break from making the Ruby Wedding card came up with this:

 Ooops, it looks kinda dark in the photo though - I took the photo after dark and due to a plethora (big word!) of other stuff on my desk there was no room there to take a photo using the daylight lamp.

I used:

- 6" x 6" square cream card stock

- 'Botanical prints' notelet, trimmed down a bit and layered onto cream card from the snippets folder

- backing paper from the Papermania Capsule Collection 'Verde' paper pack

- peachy orange organza ribbon from stash

A quick make - which is more than can be said for the other project :)

Di
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Playing with new stamps

During the mini clear-up yesterday morning of the devastation in my craft room (today's big word out of the way - and I doubt if I can beat Annie's favourite of carbaminohaemoglobin!!) - I put a few things together ready for use in the near future. I'm a little 'divil' for buying new stamps and not using them for ages, but at least they do stay in my 'new stuff to use' basket as a reminder.

A new Hero Arts stamps set ended up side by side with some gorgeous organza roses which the lovely Dee had sent to me - the roses have been lying on my desk for a few days just being stroked, they're so pretty, on a strip of net backing and the edges twinkled with just a subtle touch of sparkle. Side by side.......and bingo, inspiration struck and this is what I made:

I made two notelets, just changing the 'typed' message. Sometimes, when the inkpads, rocker blocks (yay, thank you soooo much for the encouragement to buy those Sarn, I love them!), background papers etc. are out, it makes more sense to me to make a couple of cards the same or just a little bit different. Especially when the two typed messages were crying out to be used - there's a third one in the set too so plenty of variation.

Dee actually sent me a card some while back with a typewriter on and it brought back more memories than one should admit as I learned to type on one not unlike this little beauty. Hands up those who recall typing to music, and the thrill of whizzing the carriage back to the beginning of the next line :) I was lucky and managed to fill a couple of spare lessons each week with typing classes in my final year at school and it was one of the best choices I ever made. Little suspecting that my career would be in IT and that keyboard skills would be such an advantage, I just joined the class to hear the 'ping' of the carriage return really :)) I'm sooooo shallow!!

I used:

- 5" x 7" cream card stock

- a K & Company Mat pad (the reverse of each sheet of card is plain so great to mix and match 

- Stamps from a Hero Arts clings set called  'My Type'

- toning satin ribbon from stash

- organza rose trim from Dee (which I think came from Wild Orchid Crafts)

That's today offering folks!

Di
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Just monkeying around

Not so long ago I came across a pre-loved (for that, read second hand) Quickutz Die Set for sale, called 'Monkey'. Given the influx (can that be today's big word please?) of monkeys, both here and in the homes of a few bloggers I know, I just had to have it of course :)

Great fun to play with, although you need a bit of patience, and I rustled up a few quick notelets:

The cream linen cards are just small, 3" x 3" - given that the monkey's face is only small (for which I used snippets of card). The background paper came with a magazine ages ago. Simples!!

This possibly is my shortest post ever - and maybe my shortest big word too :))

Have a great weekend!

Di
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A little bit of sunshine on a cloudy day

Super Sandra has recently posted some really gorgeous cards using summery oranges on her blog. Inspired, and because it was too hot to tackle the ironing yesterday (my excuse), I made a little notelet:

Hmm, with the rain here we could do with a Summer reminder I think. The top half of the card was embossed using the CB and a couple of lines embossed underneath. The flower was made from some snippets using a Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die, crumpled, tweaked about with, then pinned together with a glass brad from my stash. The brad was coloured with a Pro Marker to match some gems I found in my stash and the orange ribbon is from a load of small reels I got ages ago from QVC. A wide range of colours to choose from but not a lot on each reel - still, it often comes in useful. Tip, when wrapping ribbon round a vertical fold card, just cut a little slit in the spine to thread the ribbon through.

The little tag was stamped onto another snippet using a great little set made by ElzyBells and then tied on with a bit of string from The Ribbon Girl. I've lamented the closure of ElzyBells on here a few times - thankfully I did stock up in their closing down sale but I do miss their stamps!

Having finally tackled a few more snippets I'm entering this into:

Jules Crafty Snippets Challenge - Week 30

Right, now do I face some ironing (been too hot to do so for a few days) or go out in my little car in search of deep puddles and hunky firemen? It should be a 'no-brainer' but there's such a pile of folded laundry here I think it's gonna have to be the Domestic Goddess after all. Just have to hope there's a good film or two on TV............in between popping back in here to check what's going on in Bloggyland!!! Have a nice day whatever you're up to.

Di
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LOTV notelets

My bloggy friend Sandra sent me some gorgeous stamped images, and unable to sleep yesterday morning, I was colouring in at 5am. I like to have a little selection of notelets to hand and Sandra sent me four images all the same in amongst the vast selection so I had a little production line going whilst someone else here was still in the land of nod......ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz:

I know the image is LOTV and think it's called Teddy With Flower - how cute is he?! Coloured using Pro Markers, and I used an ultra-fine PM nib for the flowers stem which works just great! Then just a little bit of Grape coloured Stickles on the butterflies, layered onto olive green card and then onto plain white card stock. Perfect for notelets - and so enjoyable to colour! I think a visit to LOTV's website is called for - dangerous though!

Di

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Pay It Forward goodies

It seems like ages since I joined in a Pay It Forward initiative - I was lucky enough to be sent some gorgeous goodies by the very talented Wipso which I posted about here.

I had, in turn, to do my bit for two girlies who had joined in the fun. The first was my friend Karen, who is always coming up with clever ideas so I kinda cheated and sent her some handmade Gor Juss Girls magnetic bookmarks plus a few goodies for her to play with and make her own designs.

The second girlie was Ginger who I knew less about - except that she lives in Miami (envy!), is a scrapbooker and also publishes free WordArt on her blog. As scrapping is so big in the States it seemed a bit like coals to Newcastle if I sent scrapbooking stuff so my parcel included handmade magnetic bookmarks, some English Lavender products from The National Herb Centre and a pack of hand coloured notelets.

The backgrounds were stamped using a Hero Arts stamp called Old Letter Writing and topped with some 'old gold' coloured card with the images mounted on top. The images were stamped using a Joanne Sheen stamp called Letterbox, which is just so nostalgic, then coloured in using Aquamarkers. The post box itself was deliberately made to look faded and in need of a lick of paint BTW! :)

The parcel took forever to get there, at one point I truly wondered if it had gone walkabout - but then I got a lovely email from Ginger saying it had arrived. Phew! I hope it all spoke a bit of the UK!

Di
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'Just saying Hello' notelets

It's raining outside and I just grabbed a little time slot to rustle up some notelets....beats housework hands down!

The cards are 4" x 4"white linen, topped with scalloped circles cut from fairly big scraps of pearlised card (and I kept the leftovers too!) . The 'Just saying Hello' was stamped in Stayzon Black using an Elzybells sentiment (thank goodness I managed to buy a few stamps before Elizabeth closed her store) and the beautiful little sparkly toppers were in my stash. I don't think anything else was needed so I left it at that.

One of my best finds lately came from Hobbycraft - a pack of two tiny wooden easels which are just great for propping cards up on to take photos. They weren't expensive and I was delighted as I've been searching for them for a while now!

Di

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