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Monday 13 November 2023

Building block card

Good Morning everyone

Today is a fun fold, my first attempt at a 'building block' card, I found a template on pinterest which was too small for the topper I wanted to use so I just adjust it to the size I wanted.  Ive used these beautiful acetate printed flowers, they have a lovely gold holographic foil which sadly the photos don't do justice too.

Approx card size closed: 7x4.5"      Opened out on display: 7x9"   Full length is 11.5" 

I found a paper in my stash in the perfect colour tones as the flowers so matted onto the card base.  On the front panel i matted white card onto of the purple paper so that my flowers really stand out.    I die cut the flower pot from kraft card.  I adhered one of the floral sprays flat to the card and then adhered one onto the insert that goes into the pot so that it can be removed and used as a bookmark.


Showing the building blocks.  I die cut my friends name and happy birthday from white and gold hologaphic cardstock, used the gold as a drop shadow and adhered them into place.

Showing how the 'bookmark' removed.  Its hard to do these acetate floral sprays justice in the photo.

Items Used:
Floral PET/Acetate flowers (ebay find)
Tattered lace alphabet dies
Honey bee stamps - Flower pot die set
Birthday sentiment die
12x12 Patterned paper 

Id love to enter the following:

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While i was in the mood i made a few more

A get well card, i used pink and lemon acetate butterflies which have holographic gold foiling, and die cut lots of mini butterflies to go with them.

Just a generic with love version this time using green & yellow acetate butterflies.

Thank you all for stopping by.  I hope you all have a good week. Emmax



 

Saturday 4 November 2023

Thistlehogs among the toadstools

Good Morning everyone

Its like buses, i rarely have the honour of being a guest design and now 2 days in a row😂

Today Im honoured to be a guest designer at The fairy & the Unicorn challenge


  with an anything magical goes.   I decided to dig out my lovely thistlehog stamps and teamed them up with lots of toadstools and autumnal leaves so very seasonable.



I first made my cardbase from white cardstock and nesting dies and then cut a frame for the front and added with foam tape.  From the panel that came inside the frame i stencilled a soft background with oxide inks.  I then stencilled along the bottom with glossy glaze through a mushroom stencil, once dry i adhered the panel into the frame.

I stamped the little thistlehogs and watercoloured with distress inks and cut them out, i added shape to their bodies and adhered with glue gel.  I built up a little scene around them with transparency toadstools and die cut leaves. The little mushroom people came from another pink ink stamp set.  

Tim Holtz chat stickers that read
'those that don't believe in magic will never find it'
'dream' 'imagine' 'believe' 

Stickles glitter glue added to their little wings to finish with a touch of sparkle


Now these little thistlehogs are super tiny and super fast so we don't seem them so much but they are busy every night going about their magical work

I used distress inks - evergreen bough, tumbled glass, peacock feathers, wild honey, dried marigold and ripe persimmon to colour the them and for stencilling in the background

Im loving these PET/transparency/acetate toadstools, they are lovely to use and look so realistic.  All my leaves were cut using various scraps of ink coloured cardstock

I adhered the transparency mushrooms both flat and with glue gel so that that light can shine through some of them.  

Those who follow me know I have a garden full of full size hedgehogs & lots that visit nightly.  Just last week we've had 3 late babies out feeding in the day time so we will hopefully get them fattened up nicely for hibernation.  My old cat is very protective of them when they come out in the daytime.  

Items Used:
Pink Ink designs stamps 'thistlehogs'& 'shitake happens'
Lavinia stencil 'pods'
Paperartsy stencil 'PS179'
Distress inks & oxides
Toadstool transparancy/acetate
Cosmic shimmer glossy glaze 'daydream yellow'
Stitched nesting dies 
leaf dies

Thank you all for stopping by, please do hop over to thefairyandtheunicorn to join in the fun.  I hope you have a good week. Hugs Emmaxx

Id also love to enter this card in the following:

 

Friday 3 November 2023

The apothecary

Good Morning everyone

Im honoured today to be guest designer at MMTOTY


My last halloween make for now is this apothecary shelf mixed media project.


Approx overall size: 10x7"
I made up this MDF box frame and added texture paste through a brick stencil and also dabbed some here and there to give a rough wall effect.  Out of stiff cardboard box card i cut two strips and glued into place to act as shelves.  Once dry i coated it all in black gesso.  Splodged on some acrylic paint in red, orange and green and then dry brushed over the top with more black gesso and then silver and black cadence dora paint which really shimmers.

I then had fun raiding my stash to fill the shelves.

I knew i wanted a potion bottle that looked like it was glowing & luminous.  I used my daler-rowney acrylic neon paints and poured some of the yellow and green neon into the bottle, dabbing some onto the outside and then popping the cork back in so that it looks like it is really bubbling over.  To give the effect of it really being luminous i then dabbed more of the neon paint around the bottle so it looks like its lit up.  

I also knew i wanted some mini spell books so i played about to make my own, using kraft card and rubbing glycerine in until you get a leather like effect and its becomes malleable for the covers and cut up thin paper pages for the inside - these are just glued into place.  I used twine, touches of distress inks and paint to make them look used and well loved. 


From previous projects i had lots of mini bottles printed out from a very very old daisytrail 
digi-kit, they were printed, cut out and covered with glossy mod podge, so i have used lots of these in the back of my shelves along with real mini bottles to make the shelves look fuller with more depth.

Some of my mini glass bottles i added some alcohol ink and swirled around, others have little beads in them.  The little skulls are beads.

I added some little plastic bugs to the frame, along with the clock and keys.

I used some old wood beads as thought side on they looked a bit like scrolls on the shelf.  A printed eyeball covered with crackle accents in a little wooden bowl.  Can you spot the bat? he really is camouflaged - a little rubber bat, i gave him a coat of black gesso and adhered him up inside the frame.  



Tim Holtz bones, candle & candlestick.  A little broom and a bottle of green glittery potion - this i made up with cotton wool, green ink and gold glitter.   I added die cut spider webs to the back.  Tim Holtz chat stickers added to the scene.

I had really great fun building this up and raiding my stash.

Do hop over to MMTOTY where you can join in with anything halloween or Christmas - my brain is now in full on Christmas crafting mode -scary we are not into November, i know we say it every year but this year really is flying by😀

I hope you all have a great weekend. Crafty hugs Emmax


Id love to enter the following:

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Monday 23 October 2023

The specimen jar

Good Morning everyone

Today card is for a good craft friend who is halloween & tim holtz mad, she loves using Tims paper dolls so i have teamed up 3 paper dolls with an acetate jar i had.  It is sat on the shelf in the witches den among her other lotions & potions 


   I took a piece of white card and drew around the jar acetate as it has a border around the actual printed line, i then used a craft knife to cut just inside the pencil line, i used very thin super hightack tape to adhered the bottle behind the aperture.  Before actually sticking the jar in, i used glittery texture paste through a shattered stencil and inked up with oxide inks, once dry attahed the jar.

I cut another piece of white card with the next size up die, in the middle where the bottle would be i inked with lemonade and twisted citron inks to give a glowing effect, the outside edge i inked with violet, potion and sapphire inks.  I worked out where i wanted my 3 paper dolls so that they would appear in the bottle and adhered them in position.  I added foam tape to the back of the front panel and stuck into place.  

From previous years i had these digital images of jars, skulls, eyes, bugs printed off and covered with glossy accents.  They are a very very old daisytrail digi-kit.  I arranged them around the main image.  I also had an offcut of spider web and 2 spiders, all cut from black card and dry brushed with silver paint - i also added crackle accents to the spiders.

Dreadfully wicked chipboard
and then 3 chit chat stickers which i mounted onto black card
'Watching and waiting'
'what horrors they had seen'
'Here in the darkened house of weeping'

..............one day the specimen jar will break and they will escape and get the witch😊




This is my last halloween card for this, ive had great fun letting the imagination run wild and distract from real life for a while.


Items Used:
PET/acetate/transparency jar 
Tim Holtz Stencil - shattered
Tim Holtz Paper dolls
Tim Holtz Halloween clipping stickers & Halloween baseboards
Stamperia texture paste 'arctic ice'
Distress Inks 'squeezed lemonade, twisted citron'
Oxide inks ' violet, villainous potion'
Spider & web die
Discontinued daisytrail digital kit for all the bottles, skull, eyeball etc...

Thank you all for stopping by once again. I can't believe its half term already, babysitting 3 nieces so lots of crafting to be done which is lovely, i provide the stash they provide the energy & imagination.  I hope you all have a great week.  Big hugs Emma

Id love to enter the following:


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Thursday 19 October 2023

The pumpkin patch

Good Morning everyone

So this year ive been in a real halloween vibe, I think as i did alot of crafting with my nieces in the summer holidays and for a few sessions they were making halloween items with air dry clay which also got my mum & myself joining in.  Its just good to make something a bit different.  So anyway i made a batch of 10 pumpkin shaped halloween cards

After looking on etsy for a digital halloween stamp i came across these amazing images which were just the thing.....of course it might have been the cats that convinced me 😺


So that i could fit 2 on an A4 sheet of card i die cut 2 sizes of ovals, so one set is slightly smaller.  Approx sizes are 7x5.5"  &  6.5x5"  I also used 2 different cardstocks, one is a bright orange pearl card and the other a more muted peach.  On the peach ones i used a soft sage green for the stalks and leaves. 

After die-cutting my ovals i embossed them with a swirl embossing folder, then Inked the edges with vintage photo distress ink and adhered them together with the middle oval on the top.  I then drew around this shape with pencil onto more orange cardstock, cut out, scored a flap on the top edge and glued to the back of my pumpkins, this made my cardblank.  

Die cut leaves from green, stamped the greeting and added a hand cut stalk to the top. The smaller pumpkins i gave 2 leaves and 3 for the bigger ones.

I then had fun arranging the images for my little scenes.

This is a rather majestic kitty with her witches outfit, candle stick, skull on books & pumpkin.  I added touches of stickles 'diamond' glitter glue so that each one has just a little sparkle

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I die cut the tombstone into an oval added to the middle of the pumpkin with the ghosts

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Sticker reads' An eccentric, but estimable gentleman'

This crow image is magnificent - such intelligent birds and the gentleman reminded me of a vampire, hence the coffin image i placed in the background

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Now this one is a bit creepier, the stickers i chose read
'the young girl became possessed'    'Horrible sight'  'The Jack O'Lantern'

I added some green star gems to this background

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Heres another creepy little girl - reminds me of one of my nieces with those eyes😁
Stickers read 'something wicked this way comes'
'her luminous eyes'

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'In the shadow of the trees' 
'in the darkness'
'the witches dance and then vanish'
I added some fab bats and green star gems

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'Elmira is a curious women'
'wonders of a witch'
'smouldering rubbish with an old broomstick'
I added some gold gems to this one

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Now a bit less dark and more autumnal.  I added some die cut leaves with this kitty, pumpkins and a clearly besotted sentiment stamp 'autumn leaves & pumpkins please'
One of my cats loves chasing leaves so this is quite apt

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Kitty in leaves version 2 - i had printed the images out in 2 sizes so this was the bigger version of this image which i cut around.  Added some more die cut leaves and a lovely pumpkin

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and last but not least.  Heres a lovely little wood goblin out collecting leaves and pumpkins

 

My dads pumpkins have done well this year in the garden so we are planning a pumpkin carving session with my nieces at half term - that will be a new one for me having never done one before

Thank you for stopping by once again.  Emmax

Id love to enter the following:

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