Seaside diorama

I fancied having a go at a diorama card after seeing the tutorial at Splitcoaststampers and when my Seaside set arrived I thought it would make a perfect diorama subject! I remember those postcards you used to get where things appeared to move depending on how you held the card and thought the diorama had a bit the same effect!

Here's the card front on - it sort of loses the depth a bit but I wanted to get the whole sentiment on there as I think it's so sweet! The shells are on the card front, the little girl is on the middle layer and the sea and sentiment form the backdrop. I stamped the images so that they overlapped where the ovals would be cut and then used an oval template and a blade to cut the apertures, trimming round the images to leave them cutting into the space.

Here's another view, this shows the multi layers and the depth a bit better and lets you see that little flock of seagulls hoving in to view - hope they're not about to spoil her fun and dive bomb her sandcastles!

This kind of card just pushes sideways so that it flattens to go into an envelope - fun!

Supplies: Seaside stamp set (Crafty Secrets), Versafine Vintage Sepia, Adirondack (Cloudy Blue, Stonewashed, Denim), Tim Holtz Distress ink (Antique Linen, Scattered Straw, Broken China), Nick Bantock ink (Charcoal Grey), Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump, sponge, white gel pen

ETA a shout out for Dani of Four Creative Seasons - she has a fabulous eBay store and ships quickly and as cheaply as possible. She's my Crafty Secrets supplier of choice! Areas of California are suffering terrible fires at the moment and Dani is donating a portion of profits from the store to charities concerned with the fire fighting and relief effort. Why not check out the Four Creative Seasons store if you have some crafty pennies to spend?

Thanks for dropping by, hope the sun is shining on you today even if only metaphorically!

Time flies...

Ooops, bad blogger! I thought I'd show you this card - I made it a little while back but it's been in an anonymous voting process and I didn't want to blow my cover! The lovely people on the Tanda Stamps forum have a card making competition every month with forum members voting for their favourite card from all the entries. The theme for May was Bugs and Kisses - so anything with butterflies, ladybirds etc etc.

Being a last-minute minnie I had to choose something reasonably quick. I cut the dragonfly from the Crafty Secrets Earthy paper pad and just added a little sparkle to his wings with a clear Spica glitter pen. Edges of the paper (from the Radiant pad) are sponged and then overstamped with the swirls and the sentiment (which I thought went nicely with the fleeting nature of a dragonfly).

Supplies: Beautiful and Time to Stamp sets (both Cornish Heritage Farms), Earthy and Radiant paper pads (Crafty Secrets), Tim Holtz Distress ink (Tea Dye), sewing machine and metallic thread, nail art gems

Big smile - my card won the vote this time so I got to pick out a prize of some new stamps! Thank you very much Tanda, I'll enjoy playing with my vintage transport set just as soon as I get my (work) life under control!

Pop-up book?

Darlene's challenge this week in the Crafty Secrets member forum at Splitcoaststampers is a great one! She's asked us to "check our calendars" and make a card for any occasion that's printed on there (so not all those birthdays and anniversaries etc you write in for yourself). As soon as I spied International Literacy Day on September 8th I knew I'd found my calendar occasion!

I love to read. I've always loved to read. I don't even remember learning to read and I was pretty fluent by the time I started school so it obviously didn't present too many difficulties for mini me! This little bookish chap is obviously having a fine old time in his imaginary world and I thought he'd be perfect on a surprise pop up card which was yesterday's technique challenge at Splitcoast (there's a tutorial here if you'd like to make a card in this style yourself).

I used a cheesecloth background stamp to make my card base a bit leathery looking like an old book binding and sponged the edges too for a more aged and handled appearance and added a border of machine stitching, again because it made me think of old style book binding techniques.

I made a little tassel at the top of the slider as I thought it looked a bit like a bookmark! I stamped the panel that's revealed when you pull on the slider with a handwriting style stamp in Antique Linen ink so that I can add a message without it being swamped by a strong pattern but there's still some interest there.

I thought I could turn this into a gift by tucking a book token in there so it slides out at the same time as the message is revealed (not sure if my American visitors have book tokens - in the UK we have a national scheme which means you can buy a token in almost any book shop and send it as a gift that can be spent in almost any other book shop).

Supplies: Story of Me and Journaling (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets), Cheesecloth backgrounder (CHF), Tim Holtz Distress ink (Fired Brick and Antique Linen), Versafine Vintage Sepia, Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump, sewing machine and thread, Brass and Cream Hardware stickers (Heartwarming Vintage/Crafty Secrets), Nestability Classic Circle (used as a guide with a scalpel), copper gel pen, old gold cord from stash, corner rounder.

Thanks for your visit today, hope you enjoyed it!

Three in one!

I've managed to kill three challenge birds with one stone here!

The girls at Cornish Heritage Farms are having another Blitz, this time to celebrate new Kim Hughes releases so the focus is on KH stamps. I only have one Kim Hughes set so this is my fourth challenge card using Silhouette Blooms I and it's for Challenge 4 - combine with other CHF stamp lines (which is actually Sunday's challenge but I'm trying to stay ahead of myself!).

Daring Cardmakers this week asked us to use quotations on our cards. I picked one from Eleanor Roosevelt and printed it out from the computer. The fonts are Baskerville Old Face and Edwardian Script ITC (Am I the only one to take an absolute age to decide on fonts for projects? An Ice Age would be faster sometimes!).

Finally, Notimetostamp Challenge #38 is to use silhouette style stamps in this week's Stamp Simply challenge.



Supplies: Silhouette Blooms I, Beautiful and Weathered Wood backgrounder (all CHF), Tim Holtz Distress ink (Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain), Clearsnap Chalk ink Chestnut Roan, Antique copper square brad, computer and printer.

As ever, edges are scissor distressed - I still haven't quite grasped the point of having a specific tool for this!

Thanks for visiting today - hope you enjoyed it!

Is it time for tea yet?

Now I work freelance from home, one thing I don't miss about an office load of workmates is the endless round of making cups of tea and washing up afterwards! It would be nice to have the social aspect of the tea ritual without the actual making and clearing up wouldn't it?!

The Crafty Secrets member forum challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week has a new host - Darlene is challenging us throughout June and her first challenge theme is: dots.

I hope she'll forgive a fairly liberal interpretation of the theme!

I started thinking about dots and thought it would be fun to have one big dot as the base for the project so I reached for one of the freebie CDs that are stacked up beside my craft table as they're bound to be useful someday! I made clocks as Christmas gifts a couple of years ago and still had a couple of movements left so I decided on a CD clock and added more dots to mark out the hours around the edge.

Working days are often divided up by meetings and (sometimes hasty) cups of tea so I thought it would be fun to have a clock to reflect those "Is it time for tea yet?" moments with the kind of lined paper you might be jotting notes on in a meeting (it's from the Earthy Paper pad). It has dotted lines as well as solid ones - think Darlene will let me count those towards my quota of dots?

Supplies: Kitchen Classics, Tea and Coffee and Story of Me (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets), Earthy Paper Pad (Crafty Secrets), Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain), Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump, office hole punch, eyelet punch, CD, clock movement

Right, time for tea I reckon - thanks for stopping by!

Explore your birthday!

I made this card for my Dad's birthday. I always find it a bit difficult as he doesn't have any of the hobbies that many 'guy' cards tend to get themed around. I thought this vintage feel made a good all-rounder! The old map pages from the Crafty Secrets Earthy Paper Pad combine perfectly with the Journey set to make a more masculine-looking card.

I cut a hole with a Nestability Classic oval die and put the stamped and coloured image behind it once I'd given it the faux burnt edges treatment. I also stamped the globe from the set in Antique Linen on the card base to give it a slightly more finished feel but I don't think that really shows well on the photo. Lisa Zappa's idea of stamping words onto the little ticket image works well even to express sentiments like Happy Birthday!

Supplies: Journey stamp set, Earthy paper pad, sentiment words from a HOTP set, Tim Holtz Distress inks (Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain), Versafine Vintage Sepia, Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump, Nestability classic oval die, sponge.

Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome Baby!

I love the idea that all new babies have their name and birth recorded somewhere. I know in practice it's the boring old Registry Office but isn't it lovely to think that somewhere there's a cherub who has the job of writing it all down in a big old book? I thought this little guy from the Crafty Secrets Journaling set might be doing just that so I used him to make a card to welcome a new addition to the family.

The card base was scored on the diagonal to make a quilted effect and then I stamped the little sprig from the set to make the pattern in the centre of each quilt square. I used blue thread for my stitching but you could use an ivory or beige thread to make a 'neutral' card if you don't know whether you'll be welcoming a boy or a girl.

The silk ribbon is another of my adventures in natural dyes. Believe it or not, this one was beetroot (red beets for my American visitors). I was expecting red or at least pink but I gold this pretty dark ivory/champagne colour which is perfect with Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress ink!

Supplies: Journaling set (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets), my own design sentiment stamps, Versafine (Vintage Sepia), Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Antique Linen), scoring board, Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump, Spica clear glitter pen, silk ribbon, sewing machine and thread, sponge.

Thanks for visiting today, much appreciated!

It all began

For this week's Splitcoast member company forum challenge for Crafty Secrets (here), Lori asked us to think back to how we got started with the vintage stamping style.

I consider myself to be an 'eclectic' stamper rather than a vintage one so I had to think hard about this. I decided to concentrate on what attracts me to vintage style:

• Colour: there's something very attractive about the tones of vintage colours. They can be both muted and rich at the same time.
• Detail: whether it's the embellished bits or detailed cutting, the craftsmanlike quality appeals to me.
• Creative use of what's to hand: I guess I get this from both my parents. I've always looked at stuff and said "What can I make with that?" or "How can I make this into what I'd like it to be?"

I chose this gorgeous rich design from the Radiant Paper Pad and cut an aperture using a Nestability die as a guide but cutting with a scalpel so I could cut round the flower shapes and leave them hanging over the sentiment. I stamped the sentiment from Sweet Kids on white cardstock and sponged over, leaving the centre almost white to create a 'glow'.

The ribbon is some of the silk I hand-dyed a little while ago. This one was dyed with saffron and then overdyed with tea and came out a lovely bronze shade. A bit of inking to warm up the edges and a quick whizz round with a row of machine stitching and we're done.

Supplies: Radiant Paper Pad (Crafty Secrets), Sweet Kids (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets), Tim Holtz Distress ink (Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap, Peeled Paint), vintage lace trim, silk ribbon, sewing machine and thread, Nestability die and scalpel

If you're interested in the ribbon and didn't see the last one, the card with blackberry dyed ribbon is here.

Thanks for dropping by!

Memory Bird

Crafty Secrets is a member company at Splitcoaststampers (like a sponsorship deal, I guess) and as such, it has a member forum. There's a group of ladies in the forum who set up a weekly challenge a wee while ago with a new challenge each Tuesday. I'm usually a last-minute minnie and this is no exception (this is the last challenge, not this week's!). This also fit one of the challenges at Carolyn's to use new stuff.

Lori is hostessing the challenges on the Crafty Secrets member forum at the moment and for this one she offered a smorgasbord of inspiration and invited us to choose one or more elements from: old fashioned scrapbook style binding, stamping on ribbon, embossing (dry or heat) and bird/bug/animal images. I picked the lovely fat bird from Bird Notes and the scrapbook style binding and made this mini card:

It's the size of an ATC with a small margin added for the binding at the top edge. I thought it would be cute to add a photo or two inside and have it as a little handbag (that's purse for my American friends ;o) keepsake.

Colouring the bird with Prismacolor pencils gives enough of a 'resist' (as the leads are waxy) that the background stamping doesn't really take over that part of the card so you don't need to cut a mask.

Supplies: Bird Notes, Mini Memories and Story of Me (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets), Weathered Wood Backgrounder (Cornish Heritage Farms), Tim Holtz Distress inks (Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap, Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain), jute garden twine, vintage crochet trim, Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump

This post is dedicated to Ms Keri Lee Sereika (of Pink Lemonade) as she says I'm not posting enough ;o) Being single Mom to three young kids while her DH is on deployment is obviously not keeping her busy enough - you take care Keri!

Thanks for stopping by today everyone, hope you enjoyed your visit.

Feeling retro

The Heartwarming Vintage blog features a couple more of my projects today along with other great samples from some of the regular DT girls. I'm sharing a bit more detail on my projects here.

Interview vibes is intended to raise a smile from deep inside the nerves that accompany chasing down a new job! The little file folder (hand cut) has the guy's id photo clipped to the front and opens to reveal an interview checklist (computer generated).


It would be easy to personalise this project with the recipient's name - I just used some white core card cut into a strip to fit my Dymo label maker and then sanded lightly to reveal the raised lettering. The whole card front is covered with a single piece of paper, it just has sponged ink over the lower part to darken it a little before overstamping with the smart brogue shoes.

Supplies: Favorite Fellas (Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets), Earthy Paper Pad (Crafty Secrets), Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Tea Dye and Walnut Stain,(to sponge the dark horizontal strip), Brilliance Graphite Black, square antique copper brad, chalk, paper clip, stapler, Dymo label maker, DCWV white core card, sandpaper

Handful of Love continues the retro feel. This lady from the tea and coffee set definitely looked like she was expecting something to drop in to that outstretched hand and I thought a little shower of hearts might be a nice thing to receive!

I don't have scallop Nestabilities which would have been ideal here so I punched a bunch of small circles and stuck them behind the main image panel that already had a narrow mat of the same paper.

Supplies: Tea & Coffee, Mini Memories and Sweet Kids stamp sets (all Clear Art Stamps by Crafty Secrets), Radiant paper pad, Sweet Chips die cut shapes, Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump, Tim Holtz Distress inks (Fired Brick and Walnut Stain), small circle punch, red laid paper, grosgrain ribbon, silver thread, enamel heart charm all from stash (unknown maker).

Thanks for visiting today, I hope you enjoyed the little step back in time!