Scrapbusting circles

Remember Venn Diagrams?

I am away for the weekend, so have attempted to be a grown-up and scheduled a post. Wahoo! We will see. Hopefully I won’t bring the universe to a sticky end. I might though not visit everyone or comment much, but will do my best to catch up a bit when I am back.

This is a very quick effort, made from scraps of cards in similar tones. I just die cut circles in four different sizes and arranged them in a pastiche of a Venn diagram onto a panel of stripe-embossed card. The embossing is not showing up great in the photo, sorry, but it is too late for me to take another picture.

The banner sentiment is on 3D foam and I added a couple of dots made with Nuvo Drops and some sequins. Because they are my new favourite thing.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and I’ll be back next week.

Supplies: coloured cardstock from Hunkydory Adorable Scorable; Tonic Nuvo Drops; Teresa Collins Modern Stripe embossing folder

 

Countdown to Easter: make up your own joke about bunnies multiplying…

Firstly, an apology. I have been rather behind on replying to comments and checking out what everyone else is up to. I am, once again, having struggles with technology. From last weekend the internet has been on some kind of random strike action. It works fine for a while, then fades away. Comes back, fades away. Like some Gothic novel heroine, suffering an attack of the vapours.

I am also struggling with ongoing Reader and Notifications issues and then, because things always come in threes, I woke up with a swollen and painful eye, streaming nose and a banging headache. Peachy. I couldn’t see well enough to use WordPress for anything more than a few minutes at a time, nor could I get stuck in to anything creative. It has now improved significantly and I think it may have been an allergic reaction or a foreign body of some sort causing irritation (I have summarised enough medical records in my time to self-diagnose pretty accurately!!). I suspect it may have been glitter….

So, yesterday I was finally at least able to rustle up a little something, whilst squinting. This first card is made with Lawn Fawn Hoppy Easter stamps and dies and some Martha Stewart papers I have had for years. The tag die is from a set of three that was a magazine cover gift years ago and the cute row of crosses are made with Die-namics Basic Stitched Lines.

The second card is more of a Heinz 57. I used the same Lawn Fawn bunny, scraps of the Martha Stewart papers and the free tag die again. The Easter egg and small bunny dies are another free gift, from Docrafts Creativity magazine recently. The embossing folder is from Teresa Collins and I think it is called Modern Stripe. I am on a mission to use up some of my doily mountain too. Gonna take a while…

Now have you every worried about your brain?! About some vital bit of rational thought just not occurring? Here is my recent example giving cause for concern. Feel free to laugh at or despair of me.

I bought this box of chicks on a whim a couple of weeks ago, because they were quirky and cheep (sorry) and I thought I might use them for photo props.

At the point of purchase I wondered why they all sported Mohican haircuts. But then they do have specs and ties too so I guess my brain concluded that clearly anything goes. Perhaps it was some character franchise of which I was unaware? Or just the latest ‘thing’, maybe? Like loom beads, deely boppers, hula hoops, yo-yos….

Anyway, they have been sitting in their box on my workdesk and every day I have looked at them and mentally shook my head at the Mohican bit. Yesterday I decided that I would open the box and try and give one a haircut, take him back to the yellow only. Don’t get me wrong, I have no objection to a Mohican, but not on my chicks, I think.

And of course, as soon as I uncovered them and took one out, I realised my mistake. But for two weeks my brain has been fooling me and unquestioningly substituting a random hairdo for a (vaguely) appropriate anatomical feature. NOT a good sign!

 

 

Remember yesterday?

Today I set about making the card I intended to make yesterday, before I had rudely interrupted myself and gone ‘off piste’. Or ‘off poste’, maybe?! So if you saw yesterday’s effort, you know it is Altenew roses, pink, vellum and silver. I can’t surprise you. Except that the silver was meant to be for leaves, not the base card. I also had in mind to use wood grain embossed effect again, make some kind of tag and hope for a happy outcome.

Then I got an attack of that well-known crafting complain the Dilemmas. Emboss both the tag and background or just one, and if so, which? I die cut lots of silver leaf sprigs. Use lots? One? None, in the end. I was going to have two different strips of texture and pattern across the bottom of the tag and ended up with one. I was going to heat emboss all the edges of the tag and then decided to leave the bottom plain. Not sure why, but I am glad I did.

Finally I get to the assembly stage and the Dilemmas still have a hold of me. I cannot decide on the base card. White wood grain or linen effect silver?

I’m still not sure which I like better. Anyone got a preference? Also, TWO cards! Just thought I’d mention it….

Beetle mania?

The second thing I intended to do today was use (more!) old Kanban stamps I came across whilst rummaging last week. They are quite simple line drawings, almost caricatures, of iconic cars. My car knowledge is sketchy at best, but I think there is a mini, 2CV, Morris Minor, a Rolls Royce, Vespa, Camper Van and a Beetle, plus some road signs, speed limits and so forth. To me they look like paper piecing waiting to happen.

I chose the (I hope) Beetle (could be a mini!) as I had a mind to use some funky WRMK paper I have also had for ages. It is so bright and 1960s-ish that I thought it would be perfect. If you have never tried paper-piecing, give it a go; it’s a great way of getting colour into your card if, like me, you are not born to wield pens and pencils with any semblance of dignity. Also I find it very relaxing.

So, stamp my car once onto kraft card and cut it out. Do this first in case you make a mess of it. If you leave it to the end having done all your paper piecing and then get it wrong, there will be bad words used. Then stamp onto your patterned paper and cut out the sections you want, just inside the stamp line. This makes for a neater end result.

For the windscreen you have a choice. Stamp it again on white card, just the top bit with the windscreen, but this time with a blue ink, so you get the lines indicating the reflection. Now you can either cut this out in the same way (just inside the line) and stick it on to your patterned car and then stick that in turn onto your kraft card cut-out; or you can go in with the scissors and remove the windscreen section from your main image, then cut out your windscreen a little outside the line, to give you somewhere to put the glue. Stick it in place carefully, then adhere to your kraft card image. Obviously I went for the more complicated option. No idea why, really, except perhaps an urge to make sure that my simplistic hippie multi-coloured psychedelic vehicle looks as realistic as possible…?! And then I stuck googly eyes on it! Go figure. I couldn’t help it. When I looked at the car and the way the pattern had worked out it seemed like she had a bit of a pout. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to anthropomorphise, eyes had to be added. I have named her Clara.

For the number plate again I stamped the bottom section of the car onto white card, then used a tiny word stamp to fit into the number plate before cutting it out and piecing it on. A kraft card background, embossed using Teresa Collins Modern Stripe, plus a tiny tag cut from more paper from the WRMK pad and a Spellbinders Charmed, I’m Sure die. Pink baker’s twine, 3d foam for the car and done.