Up up and Away

There's a new challenge this morning over at The Male Room, the challenge blog for all masculine projects for the men and boys in our lives. This time we are asking you to create a card (or other project) with a moving part.
Here's mine

 When I imagined doing this project I thought that the moving part would be some clever fold, but in the end I've just gone with a free hanging basket on my balloon- well, it does move! The little house scene is a TH die cut and I put coloured card behind the windows. The sky is lightly embossed with my SU cloud folder and I made the balloon freehand, cutting the shape out of several DPs and card stock and layering them together. I laced the basket to the balloon with twine and have tied on a small key, which adds weight and keeps the basket swinging below the balloon. Finally, I used a die cut shape and a sentiment from Happiest Birthday Wishes. It folds flat(ish) to fit in the envelope.

Swinging Deer

I hope on this soggy Saturday morning that the weather is being kinder to you, wherever you are! At least we can snuggle in the warm and dry and craft! Of course, at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown we have another Christmas challenge for you and this week we have a theme

First off, I'm not the best with scenes, so I've only used a small panel, and the theme is quite simple, but that's OK. I have however made a swinging panel card, courtesy of a tutorial from my crafty friend Jacqueline, so I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

I used my Aspen tree stencil to create the tree scene and added two die cut deer in the deep red colour to match the coordinating papers . The circular panel twists around when you open the card to reveal the sentiment, heat embossed in gold and from Delightful Dozen. I used punched out holly leaves to cover the cut edge.

Over at the blog the DT have been amazingly creative with the theme of Christmas landscapes, do have a look at their fabulous work and I look forward to seeing yours!

Cascading Christmas

At last! A few spare minutes to put up a post that should have been there Saturday morning! My only excuse is a very hectic weekend, as our swimming club ran their major event of the year, our three day open meet. I'm exhausted, never mind the swimmers!
Over at 52 {Chrismas} Card Throwdown there is a really fun challenge for Christmas cards with Fancy folds (Paper engineering, I like to call it)

Earlier this year I tried a fold (well, it's rather more of a cut!) called the cascading card technique for a challenge at Technique Time Tuesday and the entries in the challenge were fabulous.  I knew that I wanted to give this one another go (there is a tutorial on the TTT blog if this is new to you).
At the time I made a card for my daughter and it's one of the few that she's kept up all year. This time of course I've made a Christmas card

 I have chosen some pretty non-traditional colours -teal, hot pink and silver. The card does fold flat to fit in an envelope.  The snowflakes are white peel-offs, the other embellishments are heat embossed baubles or punched birds and leaves. I must say the photo doesn't really do it justice, it's a very tactile card, as you pull it open you get to see the decorations inside.
Do hop over to the 52CCT blog to look at the other cards from the rest of the DT, there are some great ideas for you to try, the hardest part will be deciding which fancy fold card you want to show us!

Pumkin Treat Box

OK, so I have to eat my words now because here is a Halloween project from me, only two posts ago I was saying I don't do Halloween! Anyway, it was the cue at this week's challenge for CASology that prompted my about face

I did say that I've never made a Halloween card and that hasn't changed because I've made a gift box, just right for a little treat for Halloween visitors. Not fussy, just CAS.

It was very simply made from a sheet of 12"x12" orange DP from K&Co, cut into 5/8" strips. I punched a hole in the centre of each one and threaded them onto a brad. then you fan out the strips, make another hole in each end and thread them onto another brad, strip by strip.  This gives you your pumpkin.  I've die cut some leaves and made the curly tendrils by cutting very thin strips of card. To put the treats inside you simply slide the strips over and then back again. I am also entering this week's challenge at QKR Stampede  for Halloween Fun -it was a lot of fun to make, and at Stampin' Royalty for the challenge Halloween Goodie Packaging. I must say I am rather pleased with the result, I might be making a few more of these!

Fancy Folds

Fancy Folds - that's the challenge at Make My Monday this week. I love cards that are made this way, paper engineering, I call it, and there are so many different types of fold. At the monthly craft club I go to we are always making cards with crafty folds, thanks to our very talented leader, and this is one that I made a couple of weeks ago. It's called a folded frame card and you can find the tutorial here.

It's a great way to use double sided DPs as you get to see both sides.  The stamps I used are from a set called Madison Avenue, and I fussy cut them out before adding a few colour coordinating gems. This card is so dimensional and yet still folds flat to go through the post.  The sentiment is from Friendly Phrases and was perfect for the recipient of this card - My Mum! It was her birthday last Friday and we got to celebrate on Saturday, with a lovely lunch in the garden of a local pub - the sun was shining, it was a perfect spring day. Hope to have a  little more time to craft tomorrow too.

Fairy Lights

Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without fairy lights.  In fact, all of my children have had bedrooms strung with fairy lights at some time.  I like the multi-coloured ones best! As you may have guessed this is the theme for this week's challenge at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown where there is this lovely photograph to inspire you

Now, I bet you thought I would go all out with lots of bling and shiny stuff, didn't you?  Well, instead I have showcased two papers, both of which feature fairy lights, not a gem stone in sight! I used the neverending card fold too, just to make the most of those papers. Here is my card in all of it's folds

The centres are a little Christmas tree stamp, embossed in gold and I did them in various colours to keep with the muliticolour theme.  I also used a little 3 piece Christmas tree punch. This type of card fascinates me, but I have yet to find a glue which sticks them well enough as they do come loose at the corners- does anyone have any suggestions?
Don't forget we are still offering a super prize of some lovely stamps from the Alota Rubber Stamps company, just look at Birgit's card to see another one for this week.  Best of luck with the challenge!

Christmas Tree Candy Box

It's the fifth Saturday in September and that means that ANYTHING GOES!! at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown, decorations, albums, jars, boxes, banners anything, anything except a card that is. I was cruising blogland when I can upon this design for a candy box, which I thought I could easily adapt for a Christmas theme.  What do you think?

It's made from a square sheet of card, folded into 9 equal squares and then folded inwards.  I lined the inside of the box with polka dot paper, and threaded silver ribbon through the points to pull the top together. I decorated the sides with glittery tree paper and silver glitter card and used Christmas Tree sequins inside and out! The white greetings are on every side and the liquid pearls are supposed to be snowflakes.  I finished it off with lots of coordinating ribbon, tied into bows.  Now, all I need to do is fill it with yummy Christmas chocolates and give it to someone special.

Poinsettias and Pinecones

It's week 4 at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown and that means embellishments... you know you love 'em!  This time it's something which I never use..eyelets. I thought you needed special tools, which as a rule you do, but I've cheated and used false eyelets, which look a bit like brads. I know we use eyelets in punched holes to attach ribbons and bows but I wanted to use them in a more creative way and so I thought about the centres of flowers.  Unfortunately, I don't have any Christmas flower stamps so I borrowed this set from another member of the DT and used an eyelet in the centre of the flower.  You can see what I mean on the close up. For better effect I think you would need a few more flowers, but crafting is often about trying something out and then improving on it later.

The card itself is a slider card and I made it at a workshop.  By the clever use of a strip of plastic bag the middle bit slides out to reveal the sentiment and space for you to write your message. Neat!
Do have a look at the other creations over at 52 CCT by clicking here - they've got some great ideas to get you started. Happy Christmas crafting!

Pocket Hello

Popped over to my friend Jacqueline's this evening for a bit of crafting as she had promised to show me how to make a Double Diagonal Pocket card.  Very unusually for me I was quite organised and took the correct papers, card and stamps to make a card for this week's Simply Stampin' colour challenge.

and here it is! You can find the instructions for making this card at The Craft Club Blog, where Jacqueline has put a very easy to follow tutorial - it's amazing, just made out of a single piece of card.

I used three stamp sets for my card; Confetti, Hello My Friend and Bright Blossoms, all from SU, of course.  I used the Stampwrite markers and some small paper flowers with red gem centres and a small piece of purple ribbon.  There is a piece of Stampin' Up DSP, I think it's from the Twitterpated range, but I could be wrong!
This was such fun to make, most of the work is in the decoration. Got to go now..bed time!

A Cascading colour challenge

This card has been two days in the making! I started with the challenge at Technique Tuesday where there is a fab tutorial on how to make cascading cards. I have made a couple, and they are so amazing! Then, I combined it with the Secondary Colours (purple, orange and green) theme at Make My Monday. I wanted the overall effect to be like a gift, so I started with the orange twine bow.  I found everything in my stash which were the required colours, including a few Fimo buttons and flowers that I'd made myself a while ago. I used double sided Papermania card to make the card base and punched out a few butterflies using my SU butterfly punch - a recent purchase.  It was then just a case of putting it all together, which I did this morning, over at a friends' house, where we had coffee and crafted for a couple of hours. Lovely!!
Thanks for the good wishes yesterday, re my daughters' leaving ceremony.  Here is a picture of us going off for the day.  We had a lovely time, but now she's officially 'left' school....sniff, sniff...

Wild flowers mark 2

My previous card has made me think about the pull up card which I originally made for the Make my Monday but didn't think it was good enough! The problem was the pull up tab, it needed something. Well, here is my new, improved version, which , if it is OK with the ladies at MMM I will enter as well.  I have used more stamps from Deezines Art, and the grasses from SU's Autumn Days.

I stamped the cow parsley stem in white and clear embossed it for a very subtle effect, but it definitely adds something to the card.
I am going to relax now and sit in my garden, to enjoy some of this glorious sun!