Mind that heat gun!

It may not be the typical fire engine you would expect to see but it is an active fire service vehicle. I have always wanted to drive a fire engine complete with flashing lights and sirens and on saturday that's what I got to do.

The Fire Fighters Charity organised a Ladies Driving Challenge day held at Coltishall, Norfolk. You raise money via sponsorship for the charity and they let you drive a wide selection of vehicles, it has to be done, it is without doubt one of the best days out ever and you're helping charity while having fun. For those of you who are tempted then contact The Fire Fighters Charity to find out when and where the next challenge is.

The fire engine was top of the list but I also got to drive a combine harvester, a tractor, a coach, police car, double decker bus, a landrover on an off road course and to finish the day a ride in a tank! Wasn't allowed to drive that one .....shame, maybe next time!!!

There were also sports cars, articulated lorries and a couple of army lorries but I ran out of time. There's always next year!

Welcome Ellie

One of my friends has just had a little girl so I made this for her. Although I've known for some months of the baby's approximate arrival date I still managed to leave it to the last minute to make the card!

The stamp is from Lilly Of The Valley and works perfectly for either sex, just stamp and colour in, I've used Cosmic Shimmer watercolours. The image has been cut out using a nestability die, then leaving the die on the image I inked around the edge with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink. I love the little white border that you get when you do this, it gives the impression of another layer of card. The next layer is cut with the next size up in the nesty set using pink mirror card.

The base card was half embossed by only putting half of the front into an embossing folder. Lilac gingham paper is stuck onto the smooth half of the card. I always take the paper round the fold of the card and fix it on the back as this stops the edge getting creased up and spoiling all your hard work. The main image is placed in the centre on foam pads. Booties and wording were added using peel offs.

Sheena Douglass blog candy for christmas!

Just a small note to let you know that Sheena has some gorgeous new Christmas Fusion coming out tomorrow. Pop over to her blog to see what she has been doing with them. Must put these on my Christmas wish list......that's if I can wait that long!!

Peaceful Greens challenge

This is my 'Peaceful Greens' challenge entry for Aldridge Crafts. OK so there's a little tiny bit of orange hidden in there.

This was made using the usual Distress Inks, I know I use them a lot but they are so very versatile and this was with only two different greens.

The stamps are from a set I was given sometime ago called 'Wild Meadow' and the butterfly is from U-Mount set 'Botanical'.

To create some depth to the picture I have stamped some foliage in the paler green ink 'Bundled Sage' and the rest in 'Forest Moss'. Using a water brush or small paintbrush and a little water I painted over the stems and flowers of the large stamp which gave me a filled in look.

The butterfly is stamped in Forest Moss and coloured in with Sakura gell pens to give him a little sparkle, which unfortunately doesn't show on the picture.

I wonder what the challenge will be next week?

Creative Expressions Calling Card Challenge

Having done a little research into Edwardian calling cards I chose to put a little twist on my idea for this challenge. Calling cards were used to announce your arrival at the home of the person you wished to visit, they usually had your name on them alongside a small decoration. This little ATC is housed on a free standing pop up tag.

To make this card you will need to cut three pieces of white card as follows.
One piece measuring 4 1/4 x 11 inches, another 2 3/4 x 5 1/4 inches and another 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches.

Take the largest piece and score lines for folding at 1 inch, 2 3/4 inches, 3 3/4 inches, 5 1/2 inches, 7 1/4 inches, 8 1/4 inches and 10 inches. At the 5 1/2 inch score line measure 5/8 inch inward from each side and mark, cut a slit between these marks for the tag to slide up and down. If your ATC has dimension the slit can be cut a little wider.


Decorate both the large piece that will form the box and the middle size piece that will be the tag. Using Perfect Medium and a stamp from the U-Mount Mini Swirls set stamp and clear emboss at random. Next use a piece of Cut and Dry Foam and Distress Ink Old Paper to colour your card, then use the Old Paper with the stamp to add more swirls. Finish off with a spritz of Cosmic Shimmer Enchanted Gold. Set aside to dry while decorating your ATC.

My calligraphy skills are not too good so I used my computer to print the name. It was printed on a larger piece of paper and cut to ATC size at an angle so the writing has a slant. Once cut to size it was decorated with Distress Inks Wild Honey and Rusty Hinge, then spritzed with water to get the speckles. Once dry the corner stamp was done with another Distress Ink Aged Mahogany.

Die cut two butterflies in gold satin card and attach them, one on each side, to the top of the tag. This could be done with ribbon if you prefer. Once the butterflies are on the ATC is then stuck to the tag, make sure it is a little closer to the top as the bottom inch of the tag will be inside the box when it stands up.

Pass the tag through the slit and attach it to the last inch fold at the end of the card, make sure it is centered. Attach the tag to the other end of the card to form the box from which the tag will stand.

The box is finished with a paper rose made from die cut flowers using a technique found on Creative Expressions website, see link below. Colour the rose before assembly with Wild Honey and Rusty Hinge, once assembled spritz with Enchanted Gold.
http://www.expressrubberstamps.co.uk/images/uploadpics/SueWilsonsPaperRoseHowTo.pdf


The card will fold flat and pop up when the butterfly is pulled. Calling cards were hand delivered so the rose would not have been squashed. If you wish to post this type of card you could either use a box-a-lope or a flower with less dimension for the decoration.

I do hope you try this card it's something a little different.

For all the ladies I met last weekend please follow the link above to Sue's paper rose technique, this is how I learnt to make all those flowers.

Happy Crafting.

Time at Craftmania

Many thanks to Craftmania in Lowestoft and their eager customers for a very busy day last saturday. Viv and I spent the day demonstrating to a constant crowd of fellow crafters.
This was one of the samples on show which raised some interest. It was made with the Creative Expressions embossing folder Time using white card. Once embossed I inked the card with Distress ink Old Paper all over, then Brushed Corduroy around the edges and over the raised features. The clock face was a piece of satin gold card also put through the embossing folder, as are the hands. I used an Archival Ink black to rub over the clock face to pick out the numbers, it wasn't a perfect job so to cover my little smudge I stamped the face with Archival Sepia and a crackle background stamp. The hands are also coloured with the black ink pad and fastened to the face with a brad, then the clock face was mounted on the card. This would also look good using Walnut Hollow Creative Metal.
The sentiment is a stamp from the U-Mount stamp set Time, stamped in Archival ink Coffee and clear embossed. The little cog is from a broken clock I got from a local jewellers ( got some funny looks when I asked for a broken clock! ) It is then matted on chocolate brown card and mounted on foam pads. The whole card was matted on chocolate card, then cream, then chocolate again.

Truly Cosmic

As soon as I saw this canvas I knew what I wanted to do with it. I have to confess I am a bit of a Treki and this just had to be done, for my son of course!!

How to 'Make it so'. One round canvas from Wilkinsons painted with Eco-green acrylic black. Then comes the fun part, spritzed with Cosmic Shimmer sprays in various colours. I've always wanted to do this type of thing with the sprays since I first got my hands on them and what better way than to 'Boldly spritz where no crafter has spritzed before'.

The planet surface doesn't show up too well on this picture but it has a really moon like look to it. It was made by mixing Eco-green acrylic paint with sand. I masked off the canvas with a piece of card cut around a tea plate, this helped keep the edge crisp. It took overnight to dry fully, I was going to cosmic that too but decided it would be too much bling so left it matt.

The planets and alien are all stamped from U-mount plate 'Outer Space'. The planets are stamped onto acetate with Stazon and then glittered, the alien was stamped on white card and coloured in with a green highlight pen, then double embossed with a glow-in-the-dark embossing powder. The Enterprise (starship) was taken from a tatty book found in a charity shop.
I really enjoyed making this picture, I was so pleased I managed to get it just as I'd imagined it. It also shows that Cosmic Shimmer and rubber stamps are not just for card craft.

I have another canvas so I might try and see if 'The force is with me' and adapt the idea slightly, so watch this Space! You don't have to be mad to craft but it helps!!!