That time of the year again ...

I cannot believe that we are nearly at the end of another school year.  We have quite a short half term coming up and the girls will have broken up for the Summer at the beginning of July.

If you are also going to be thinking about teacher 'Thank You' cards soon this design uses a torn heart as a base for an apple which can be decorated any way you fancy!  

Why not use your Spellbinders heart die to cut out the basic heart shape which you then tear around  rounding off the bottom point as you go to create the torn apple shape!  

Decorate any way you choose and hey presto ... a simple and fairly quick card for all of those special teachers!

New Stampendous Dies & Coordinating stamps ...

The new Stampendous Dies with coordinating stamps came into stock this week.

Here we have used the Lovely Garden set to create this aperture card.

The largest die from the set was used to cut the aperture in the card.

 I used the die again along with the other size flower dies to cut from patterned paper (NB. I cut the smallest die twice so that there are four layers and the flower will have even more dimension).

I edged around the all of the pieces with a neutral ink pad and pinched the petals of the top three layers of petals to give the flower movement.

Close the card and position the largest die cut piece of patterned paper through the hole so that the flower matches up with the aperture.

Add the other three layers, using foam or double sided tape to create the 3D flower.

I stitched around the flower with a black pen for extra detail.

Add some gemstones to the middle of the flower and decorate the front of the card as shown.  The stamp set used was from the 'Simply You' stamp set from Technique Tuesday.

View the rest of the stamps in the range HERE >>

Happy Crafting!

Have a really sweet Birthday ...

Today we have a Birthday card with a vintage feel using our new Sweetie Jar Stamp Set from Woodware

All of the patterned papers on the card come from the Sweet Routine 6x6" paper pad from Websters pages.

Begin by cutting a strip of the pale blue paper from the pack (approx 4cm in depth).  A second piece of paper was cut (pale green) using the Spellbinders machine and S5201 Curved Borders Two 2.  

Both pieces of paper were layered towards the bottom of the card.

The jar from the pack was stamped onto white card as well as pink flower paper.  The pink lid was then trimmed and stuck to the top of the white jar with a glue pen.  

The white jar was cut out and a little ink added to the right hand side edge of the jar with a sponge applicator.

Self adhesive lace  was added to the top of the jar to add to the vintage feel and this was stuck into place on the card with double sided tape.

The sweets were stamped and cut from coordinating paper and added to the jar with the glue pen.

The tag was stamped once onto patterned paper and again onto white cardstock and a sentiment from the stamp set was added in the middle of the white tag.  The white tag was then trimmed so that it would fit into the patterned tag as shown.

Finally pink ribbon was added to the side of the card, triangles of the patterned paper were added to the top of the card to represent bunting and a white gel pen was used to add a little detail around the edge of the card.

Easter Flower

This little Easter card is simple to make and could be adapted for all sorts of occasions:

The instructions are included below along with details of the products which you will be able to click onto so that you can see the exact products used:

To begin, take a base white card (approx 150cm x 150cm) and round the top right corner with a corner rounder.  

Create the flower using the guide below but before you stick it into place on your card, position it which will give you an idea as to where you will need to stamp your 'Happy Easter' sentiment.  Once you are happy with the position of your flower (and leaves) remove them from the card and stamp the 'Happy Easter' Stamp onto the card with a black ink.  It will be far easier to do the stamping at this stage as the flower will give a 3D effect to the card once in place.  

Once you have stamped the sentiment it would be a good idea to tie some ribbon around the spine of the card at this stage as this may also prove to be a little fiddly once the flower is in place.

To create the flower I used some coordinating papers from the Websters pages Postcards from Paris collection pack .

Using the Japonica Flower punching and embossing punch from Woodware punch out 5 flowers from the paper pack (I punched 2 flowers from one design and 3 from another).  

{This punch cuts the flower shape with the first press of the arm. It will also emboss the design for you if you part release the arm after punching (to release the mechanism slightly) and then repressing the arm again a further once or twice (without releasing all the way).  This will create embossed veins in this particular design}

You will also need to punch 1 small buttercup flower  from McGill and four leaf stems using the Leaf Punch also from McGill.

Once you have all of the parts of the flower use one of the Princess Brads to hold the flower together and start to push the brad through the middle of each flower (starting with the small buttercup first).  Once all of the layers of the flower are together you will be able to 'fluff up' and pinch the petals and layers of the flowers to create a little dimension.  You can also take a neutral Memento ink pad and use it to apply some ink directly to the flower by gently rubbing the ink from the pad over the edges of the flower.

Once you are happy with the flower.  Stick into place using strong sticky double sided tape.  Finally position the leaves around the flower and when happy stick each into place using a glue pen.

Happy Crafting!

He loves me .... he loves me not ...

This weekend we have family visiting and so there will not be time to sit and craft. 

I thought I would share a couple of Valentines themed projects from last year as we have had so many new subscribers to the blog and newsletter recently that there will be a lots of you who have not seen them before!

And for those of you who have seen them ... we'll be back with a new tutorial again next week.

Have a lovely weekend!

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