May Card Club

 May's Stampin' Up card club with Paula of Knall Crafting was all about Papillon Potpourri...everybody else bought Bermuda Bay as their ink for this class but as I already had it I went for a different colour, Real Red, to build my collection up. As well as the ink I also got a reel of Real Red Taffeta Ribbon to play with on my cards.

 All of the cardstock I used was Whisper White and Real Red.

 Ads you can see for most of my cards I decided to use Sassy Salutations, I know it's no surprise as I do love this set so much. For some of the cards I changed which of the larger butterflies I used as well as I prefer the flower print on to the detailed drawn one.

It's cards like this one that make me think I need to get the Flowering Flourishes stamp set as it really is a great set to use.

 For this card we used a circular mask and brought out the Gorgeous Grunge set from the April class and stamped using the smallest of the paint splats before then removing the mask and stamping the stripes over the top. The large butterfly was punched out of plain Whisper White card using the Elegant Butterfly punch and then sponged with ink using daubers. Think this is my favourite card from the class actually.

 This simple yet elegant card using the Simply Scored Scoring Tool for the embossed (or debossed as I chose to use them) lines and happy birthday wishes sentiment from the Petite Pairs stamp set.

 For this card we used the small butterfly silhouette and then the Bitty Butterfly punch to punch it out. Using the card scrap we punched an Elegant Butterfly out of earlier as a mask we could then sponge dauber ink to produce 3 more butterflies 'flying' up the card. The sthank you sentiment comes from the Blooming With Kindness stamp set.

 Once again Paula made us a lovely gift...this time it was an A6 notepad using some of the new watercolour papers for the tag and the tag topper punch too.

First Use Of The Judo Suit Template

It's great to see somebody has made a card using the Judo suit template I was asked for last week. I'm quite excited to see how people use it. This is Kirsten's card for her grandson and you can see her blog by clicking on the photo of the Judo card.  

I look forward to seeing what else people do using the template.

Been Making Totes

So I mentioned in my earlier post Elephant Make Up Bag that I was going to be making a lot of fabric presents for friends and family this year.. well here are the presents for the May birthday ladies.

The first tote was for my Mum and she has an obsession with hearts, so I used some of the leftover fabric I had from the apron I made her.

 The second tote was for a friend who works for VW so when I saw this super VW camper van fabric I knew I had to get some and make her something from it.

 I faffed about with where to cut the sections from the piece of fabric I had to make sure both sides had a full camper van on. As there's so many cool campers on the fabric I made sure both sides had a different coloured camper showing so she can decide which side should be showing depending what colour she likes on the day.

Great present to give people and really easy to whip up...can see a few more of these being given out as presents this year!

May Birthdays

 Finally got round to making some cards when I'm not at card club! These cards are for our friends and family who have birthdays in May.

 Even managed to use one of my Sale-a-bration freebies that's been sat around in the drawer while I've pinned loads of ideas using the set.

Made using:

• Petal Parade stamp set
• Sassy Salutations stamp set
• Crisp Canteloupe cardstock
• Pistachio Pudding cardstock
• Crisp Canteloupe ink
• Pistachio pudding ink

 Making mascualine cards is always such a struggle, good thing I got myself a bundle of blues and turquoise inks recently.

Made using:

• Gorgeous Grunge stamp set
• Sassy Salutations stamp set
• Bermuda Bay ink
• Coastal Cabana ink
• Pacific Point ink

 First outing for the giant butterfly stamp I got last year...even managed to find some ribbon in my box that perfectly matched the bermuda bay ink and it's non SU.

Made using:

• Swallowtail stamp
• Sassy Salutations stamp set
• Bermuda Bay cardstock
• Bermuda Bay ink
• Basic Pearl Jewels

As everyone should have received asnd opened them by now it's safe to publish this post, hopefully they all liked their cards too.

Tote Bag

 Ages ago I won a bundle of goodies from the lovely ladies over at Live It Love It Make It loads of fabric sewing kits to play with. The kits sat in fabric stash box for ages till I finally decided on a day off that I'd start playing with them, the tote bag seemed like it'd be the easiest so I thought it'd be a good starting point.

 Love the colour of the fabric and the awesome turquoisey blue thread that came with the kit. The little owl was an applique that my Nan stuck into my handmade birthday card that she knew I'd find some purpose for in the future. Been a very useful little bag, it seems to have become my bag for taking my card making goodies to and from card club. Only thing I might change for next time is having the straps sewn into the inside of the bag instead as sewing the perfect X's on the front wasn't easy and with a more visible colour thread would be a nightmare to make look neat.

 

Judo Card Template

Yesterday I received an email from a lady in Denmark about the judo suit shaped card I made for an order ages ago.. apparently there isn't a template out there on the web for a card in this shape and she was asking if I could provide her with a template..

Here's the card to remind you all what it looks like..

 

So after a little doodling and fiddling with photoshop this morning I have managed to make a template  for this card and can share it with you all now. If anybody wants the template then the link to download it is here.

Please if you use this template do come back and share a link to your card so I can see how you all have used my design.

Fabric Apron

Another old one that I never got round to sharing, found this picture among the pictures rescued from my old laptop...

Mum bought a large piece of fabric at a craft show and gave it to me to make her an apron and said my payment would be all the leftover fabric to play with...which was quite a large piece so I was more than happy to do it.

Had a few issues trying to get the tie straps in the right place for the shape of the apron to stop the top flopping at the sides...but after a few unpicks and restitches it all came good.

 

She says she's been wearing it so I guess it was another successful order for me.

Marvel Birthday Card

 I get some unusual requests for card orders and this one was certainly a challenging one, from a regular customer. This one was for her grandson's birthday.

The brief was:

• Number 3
• Kai (his name)
• Marvel characters (had to include Captain America, Hulk, Spiderman and Iron Man)
• Bright colours

 So here's how I put all the requested details together.
 

I tried to keep the colourschem simple as just blue, white, red and yellow...with a little green for Hulk, any more green would have been too much for the card, I did play around with green more and it just didn't work.

I even hand drew all the characters, which was not the easiest thing to do, many attempts at each character till I found a comic book cover that had the perfect pose of \captain America, Hulk and Spiderman that I could draw for myself. I coloured them using watercolour pencils.

 Now I didn't forget Iron Man...I just couldn't get him to fit on the front of the card with the other charcters.. couldn't leave hiom out either as he's Kai's favourite character so I decided to put him inside the card to make the insert more interesting.

Scrabble coasters

Saw this idea on Pinterest ages ago and have been meaning to try it ever since... but it's a real struggle to try and get enough scrabble letters together (that actually come from the same set) to build up enough words to make a set of coasters. Saying that, the cork backing wasn't easy to get hold of, even the hobbycraft staff didn't know that they stock cork in their stores!

  

Tried to stick to drinks themed words for the coasters, 4 letter drinks words are a challenge to come up with as well...word suggestions for the next set are very welcome and any ideas where to get scrabble tiles cheap or free also appreciated. Think I'll put out another wanted request on freegle see what I can find.

Gluten free, dairy free bread making class

  Last night a friend and I went on a bread baking class run by Mark of Blackbird Bread a microbakery in Twickenham that also runs local bread making classes. My friend is a coeliac and we don't get to do many baking classes together so we jumped at last night's class as it was perfect for her and a totally new baking concept for me to work with. Mark took the challenge one step further and made the evening dairy free as well as gluten free!

 Our first bake was a white gluten free soda bread, made using soya milk and soya yoghurt instead of buttermilk and then a couple squeezes of lemon juice to provide the tang that buttermilk normally provides.

Then we moved on to gluten free brown rolls, with a little gluten free white bread flour thrown into the mix too. These really are heavy and very filling, one small roll is enough for me in one sitting. Surprising how the dough just doesn't seem to increase in size as much as 'normal' gluten bread when it proves, still can't get my head round that one at all.

We finished up with a white loaf, made using a mix of gluten free white plain flour and white breadflour. This really is a heavy little loaf and the texture of it inside really does resemble cake...took Mark a while to convince me this was really what it should be like.

Here's how the finished bake all look together.. now to persuade my boyfriend that it's not too healthy him to help me eat some of it!