Have you been to the Craft Barn yet?

THE CRAFT BARN

What a fabulous blog they have in the Craft Barn.  It's just brilliant and I don't know why I have never been visiting there before.

They are also doing a Blog Candy Giveaway....................................and it ends on September 9th, so if you want to be in with a chance you need to visit 

http://thecraftbarnblog.blogspot.ca/2012/08/its-blog-candy-tiiiiiime.html

Isn't that enough to get your creative juices going?  You know, it doesn't take long to be in with a chance............go on.......you know you want to.

See you later

I'll be back with more sketches and stuff soon.

Love and hugs

Annie xxx

Sketches - sketches and even more Sketches

Sketches and stuff

Hello again everyone, how are you all today?  It's lovely here today, so I will be going out and about with hubby and the dogs......as I usually do about twice or three times a day.......but in the meantime, here are some more sketches for you:

This sketch is one of my favourites as the choice of colours are never-ending.  For me I used black, grey and white  with a little silver this time...but just imagine it in red and gold, or black and silver, or blue and ....well you will see what I mean.

Here is the card I made:

I love it.  and I will use this design again and again for different celebrations.  This time I used it for a sympathy card.  I measured and cut the pieces out and decided that I would use the acetate with butterflies on it for the centre.  I'm not sure where the papers came from as I already had them, so it was just deciding where they would go.  I think it worked quite well the way I have done it.  I used double sided sticky tape to stick it all down, but before I did I stuck down the acetate so that the papers would slightly overlap it, which made it very neat.  The base card is an 8 x 8" square black card, and the sentiment is a white peel-off.

Card:  Craft Creations

paper and acetate: own stash

peel-offs: Craft Creations

So, now onto the next one:  Here is something completely different:

It's a clutch bag.........and I think it would be lovely to give to someone at Christmas time, which is why I chose the colours that I did.

So here is the finished article two photos, one closed and one open.

Here is the closed bag.  I used white pearlised card, which I embossed and then cut out and scored.  I cut out the flag border from red paper and stuck it down using double sided sticky tape.  The decoration is a red flower with and smaller one in the centre and a white fluffy brad for the middle of the flower.

Here is it open..........

As you can see I covered the centre with matching red paper and then glued an oval in white for someone to write there own message on.  I used a self adhesive velcro fastener so that it stays shut when closed.  It is very simple to make and I think it's very effective.

Lastly today is this one:

When i made this one, I was not very happy with it so I added to it.....eventually!!!  I will put up the photos of both versions:

It looks fine by itself, but i changed it in the end.  First of all I used an 8 x 8" square base card and covered it with distressed brown self striped paper, which looks old and used.  I then cut out the pale mauve and white paper which has clock faces on it and stuck that on the top of the brown paper, at the bottom left hand side.  On top of that I put the sentiment and glued a purple flower to the bottom right of the sentiment.  So it looks okay..............but then I had an idea...................

And I did this to it:

It's that acetate again.......I just love it and it really lifts the card and makes it very special, don't you think?  I just felt it needed that extra oomph!  and I liked the end product.......eventually.

Card:  Craft Creations

Acetate: not sure

Brown paper and paper with clock faces and tag: Wellington

Flower: prima flowers

So there you go:

I hope you enjoyed todays creations.

Love and hugs

Annie xxxx

More Creativity Sketches

More Creativity Sketches

Hello everyone.........here we go with some more sketches.  I have to say that doing these sketches was a challenge for me as I had never worked to a sketch before I did these, but I won't shy away from them in the future.......some of them I didn't like but still made because to me that is how you learn.

Here you go then:

This sketch was on day 16 of the month of sketch challenges and I had just bought some new crafty goodies which was perfect for my idea.

Here is the card I made to this design:

I had bought new Wellington Bear paper and die cuts because he is just gorgeous, so I used two of the papers, which I think complimented each other. Using a 4 and 1/2" square card, I measured and cut two pieces of the different paper and stuck them to it using double sided sticky tape. The distressed orange on the top and the stripey on the bottom.  From the packaging I cut the tag and the oblong shapes as the designs on them were just perfect.  I used a gemstone on the tag and glued a wooden embellishment in the shape of an oblong stamp, which simply said Love onto the tag.  On the bottom oblong I glued a wooden flower with open petals into which I put stickler, which I think is very effective.  Both the tag and the oblong were stuck onto the card using double sided sticky pads.

Card:  Madaboutcards (no longer in business)

Paper:  Online shop (can't remember)

Embellishments: wooden oblong  from Crafty-emblies.com and the flowers from my own stash although it may have come from CraftsUlove.
stickles: my own stash.

Simple, yet effective.

Here is the next sketch:

Se here is a DL card, which I made using an A4 card and scoring it twice, cutting off one third that I didn't want.  

I folded the white card and laid it to one side.  I then embossed some pale purple card and cut a strip the width of the card and then glued it to the card.  I then took a downloaded image of purple roses and changed the sizes to fit the images I made.  I then die cut the pieces out that I wanted and stuck them onto the card using double sided sticky pads.  The sentiment I already had from another downloaded design, which I thought worked well.

Card:  Craft creations

Purple Roses Image:  Fred She Said

Sentiment: Debbi Moore

Purple card: own stash

Embossing folder: Cuttlebug

Dies: nestabilities and nellie snellen

Here is something slightly different:

This one took some thinking.  I had seen an image in google images and thought it would work perfectly with this design.

Here you go:

I used an 8 x 8" square card in lack for the base.  I then used some zebra striped paper I had for under the image and.  Before I did anything at all I used white ribbon with black ribbon overlaid and using double sided sticky tape stuck them into position.  I then stuck down the zebra paper which I had cut out to shape and the image which I had printed off and then cut out to shape slightly smaller than the background paper.  After sticking them together I stucke them to the card overlaying the ribbon.  I die cut a spikey round shape and two smaller circles, one in camel colour and one black and used peel-offs for the sentiment which was in the centre of the circle and on the bottom right of the card. I added the buttons threaded with orange string for effect.

I love this card for it's humour more than anything else.

Card: Craft Creations
Zebrapaper: my own stash
image: google images
Ribbon: Fantastic ribbons
Buttons: my own stash
Embellishment card and paper: my own stash
peel offs: craft creations


I hope you like it.

More coming soon.

Love and hugs

Annie xxx

Using Sketches

Creativity Club Sketches

and what I did with some of them!!!!!

Hello everyone.  I have been neglecting my blogging due to having visitors throughout July and early August as well as to being generally feeling down.  Anyhow, i am here now and thought I would share with you all what I did during some of July.  Docrafts Creativity Club set out daily sketches for us to be creative with..........and some I made were fabby and others.....well .........not so fabby!!!!

I won't bore you with all of them but I am selecting a few to share with you, starting with the first one.....1st July:

Here is the sketch:

As you can see it is fairly straight forward.......... until you try and figure out what you are going to do with it that is...........and it is straight forward unless your name is the same as mine!!!!!!!

Anyhow, here is what I made:

or

The first photograph was taken using the flash and the second one without the flash.  Using very shiny multi-coloured paper seemed like a good idea at the time.....until it came to photographing .....and then it was a bit of a disaster:

However, I will endeavour to explain what I did:

Using an A4 chocolate brown card, I scored it down the middle to make it into an A5 card.  I used dies to cut out the lady and the man, the ribbon border and the ovals. I used a sentiment I already and and added decorations of a wooden flower and wooden butterfly as well as prima vintage paper flowers.

After die cutting out the ribbon border, I threaded through some off-white velvet ribbon and then placed them both according to the sketch.  I used copper mirricard for the scalloped oval dies and the multi-coloured shimmer paper for the next layer.  Once I glued those pieces together I die cut the lady in cream and the nam in the same card as the base card, and glued them to the ovals.

Using double sided sticky pads I adhered the ovals to the ends of the borders and using tacky glue (which dries clear) I stuck the paper flowers at the other ends of the borders.

I used double sided sticky tape to stick down the sentiment and placed a wooden flower and wooden butterfly at the edge of the sentiment.  I added the wooden flower because the shape of the sentiment was unusual and curved inwards on the top left hand side and I didn't like it like that ..so I covered the space with the flower and added the butterfly for interest.

Chocolate Card: Papertiere (Aberdeen)

Multi-coloured shimmer paper: Craft Creations

Ribbon:  Fantastic Ribbons

Cream card: from bits of stash of my own

Man and woman  and ribbon border dies: Marianne Dies

Scalloped and plain ovals: nestabilities dies

wooden embellishments: had in my own stash

vintage paper flowers: CraftsUlove

Sentiment: own stash

So, there was my very first ever attempt at a sketch design for a card!!!!

Here comes another one:

This one was a bit more complicated but I loved doing it:  Here is what I made

This can be used for any occasion including Christmas.  Firs of all I scored the A4 white card down the middle to make it into an A5 card.  Using the sketch I printed out a swirl design and a sky design and cut them into 3 squares of equal size.  I stuck the first square in position  to the left middle of the card, and then the second one of the same design to the right lower middle of the card.  I then stuck pale blue and gold peel-off borders around them and then added self-adhesive pearls to the swirls to give them depth.  

Using pale blue organza ribbon, to divide the card lengthways over the top of the two images, i then added white cotton lace to the centre of the ribbon.  I then cut out a square of the sky scene and added tiny gemstones to some of the stars.  The sentiment is one i already had and I stuck it to the picture using double sided sticky tape.  To finish off the design I used 3 matt blue oval gemstones going down the bottom left and top right of the design.

Swirl design: Debbi Morre

Sky design: Debbi Moore

Photographic paper: Kodak ultra premium 

blue ribbon: my stash

white lace: Panduro Hobby

Gemstones and pearls: my stash

So there you have it!

Here comes another one:

This one was very different for me and I gave it a little more thought as I wan't sure what to do about all the circles....and then it came to me buttons!!! Lots and lots of buttons!!!

Here you go then:

For this card I printed directly onto white card using a Debbi Moore Shabby Chic CD.  I then cut it down into a DL card by scoring it twice and cutting off the part i didn't want.  I then printed off a Creativity Free paper design..Vintage Kitchen, using the doily page.  I measured who much of a doily I would need and then cut one out.  Turning the card over I placed the doily onto the card to the size you see and drew pencil lines where to co cut it to fit.  After cutting out the shape I glued it into position using tacky glue.  I then put tiny pencil dots where I wanted the buttons to go.  After sorting out the buttons for size and numbers, I then put a dot of tacky glue on each pencil mark and stuck down a button until they were all stuck into the design.  

For the sentiment I a flowersoft one and covered the edge with glue and covered it with white flowersoft mixed in with big glitter.  When that was nearly dry I used dark red stickler to highlight it.  I folded the card and bob's your uncle.......or not as the case may be!!!

There is one more to come today:

This one, I think, could have been a straight forward one but I wanted it to be different to look at but keep to the sketch; so this is what I did with it:

As you can see, this 8x8" square card looks as if there is a doily in the centre......well, there is and there isn't!  Take a really close look and you will see the panels that I printed off, cut and matched up, with the different coloured backgrounds.  I added white lace and green/gold gemstone flowers to finish it off with and a flowersoft sentiment, which I left natural, as I thought it just matched the whole design.

I used thin card to print the designs on and matched them up sticking them down with double sided sticky tape.

Square card:  Craft Creations

patterned papers: Creativity free download vintage Kitchen doilies.

lace: Panduro Hobby

gemstones: freebies with a magazine

sentiment: my own stash

I hope you like it.

There will be more to come, very soon.

Love and hugs

Annie xx