ONE IN ONE OUT

Hi Crafters

Beginning to count down to retirement and planning the craft days. Before that can start though I have to clear my crafting items from the office. With this mind I started to tidy the drawers in my office and came across paper pads with bits and pieces in and some with quite a few sheets.

As usual I got sidetracked by some card in the recycling pile and made an album cover. Then finding some sheets of A4 sheets of lightweight card I made the binding system to fit the album cover.

That was one lunch time gone. The next day I put the inside pages to the binding and a couple of days later I finished the album.

Some of the other Sheets of A4papers and 12 x 12 papers were gathered up with an idea of building a grab bag for charity which I will do but then decided some of them could be used to make the DL envelopes with self closures from the Tattered lace templates and dies (see below) .

I brought the album home on Thursday to put on eBay and would you believe it I sold one of Only two albums I had for sale., so today has been a day of photographing and uploading more sales on eBay including the album, and posting the album off to my buyer.

This one is called memories

Tattered Lace Envelope templates and Closure dies

Hi Crafters
I said I would do a review of the new templates and dies from Tattered Lace when I received it and it came on Thursday so here it is.

There are several templates ranging from an 8 x 17cm to  a 10.5 x 21cm size envelope  12 in all
This seems to be overkill as there is such a  small difference between the sizes 6 templates would suffice.
The dies work  with the envelope and close it up well, and this is what the kit is all about. Great design making the fastening line up and work well as a closure, the only downside with the dies are there are no instructions, which would be helpful as the lining up is very important

Instructions would help to ensure the die cutting was carried out at the right point and that lining up enabled the clasp to be cut with the DL wallet folded or it does not fit onto a standard die machine.

It should  be noted the templates require A4 sheets for the smaller templates and for anything after the first 5  sizes  12 x 12 sheets.

If you have not taped the show you need to make sure you get a good look at any available instructions on create and craft as there are no other tapes available at the present time.

With all that said if you have to have the latest paper craft items then you will be pleased with this. Die sire do some closure dies but they are bigger and not suitable for envelope closures. The dies are the "must have" pieces and the good news is they can be used on any envelopes you make for your cards.
 A great design and clever marketing

     Here is one made from A4 velum

A larger envelope made from a 12 x 12 piece of K & Co papers

Rectangular Pop Up Box Card

Hi Crafters

Found this rectangular pop up card when looking through you tube and thought I would give it a go as I love the square version. If anything I like the rectangular pop up even more and find it easier to decorate as the greeting can be part of the decoration leaving the front flap with enough space to add your personalised message.

I will definitely be making more of these,
They are aslso good for the masculine cards I am trying to collect although the first attempt is not quite right I am going to try a music theme and a sea-scape theme.

Cards for Men

Hi Crafters

Moving on from the last workshop to prepare for the March craft day I have been collecting ideas for men's cards. I find Pinterest very good for this and I opened a board just for masculine cards.

The problem with a new interest even within the craft hobby there are always new stamps dies etc to excite and add to shopping list. At lot of the cards I was attracted too used a grunge stamp for the background so I have sent for some. In the meantime I used a technique seen on tv and sprinkled some embossing powder across the card and heated it to get a sprinkled effect.
I then cut out some sprogs and cogs from my dies and added them with split pins to give a little shine This has been made using an A4 cream card, and I have made it for my brother.

As you can see I have added a Happy Birthday and a MOP button with brown ribbon tied through and mounted on gold card and then black.
Let me know what you think!

Shadow or Tunnel card

Hi Crafters

I have recently had one of the many nasty colds going around and it completely floored me. So when I had two days annual leave thought I would take it easy and craft quietly.
Watching tonic die channel I saw a lovely shadow box card so had to have a go.
I am pleased with the results, although a little bulky the cards will flatten for posting, and I will make some smaller ones in future .

An update on new tools

Hi Crafters

In January I treated myself to a new cutter. It was the self sharpening Cutterpillar Pro.
At £99 on discount (normally £129) I thought it would be all singing all dancing and worked out that if it meant never buying a new blade for 10 years it would just about pay for itself.
The beauty of buying from Create and Craft is the ability to try and send back if not up to expectations.
Quite excited when it arrived and unpacked it the same evening to try. It cuts like a dream, and once I was use to the cutter it would cut very straight, but by the end of the trial evening I had decided to return it. Hubby had offered to help buy it, but for once it was not about the money. It took up a lot of space  and whilst the top of the cutter had score marks all over it they were not for scoring just for decoration. This meant all my card making would require this cutter plus a scorer. Too much space on the desk and twice as long to  make a card. I currently use a Fiskar cutter and whilst the new ones have a wire down the cutting groove my older version does not
. This means I can put a card in the cutter and cut the size I want, then just line it up at the top of the cutter to score all the lines I need to  make my chosen style. If yo make straight folding cards and mat and layer a lot, the cutterpillar pro would be great but if you make styled cards such as pop up box cards shutter cards etc it really is a lot of hassle to change tools.

However all is not lost. The item was returned easily through Asda, at no cost and last week I saw a template and dies I had to have from Tattered Lace. I do not have a lot of tattered lace dies and at first I made the mistake of thinking the envelope shapes were dies as the kit was £24.99 plus p&p . But the DL envelope shapes are actually templates. The bit I really really wanted though were the dies that came with it (you cannot buy them seperately) and they cut a tidy slit in the envelope flap and then either a heart, butterfly and one other the other side of the flap leaving the centre in. This enables you to fold the heart in half and put it through the envelope slit to close the envelope.

I will review the kit once it comes, can't wait to play with it.

Back to Stamping

Hi Crafters

Sorry it's been a long time again, but had a lovely craft day at the end of January where we made some lovely flowers using the heartfelt stamps and dies.
I think we all left with a few new ideas for cards and Spring wreaths plus a date in March for another craft day when we will be looking at cards for men.

I am enjoying a renaissance with stamping and spent an enjoyable day making some simple but effective cards.

Here I have used pan pastels and watercolours to make the background and then stamped over finishing with matting and layering