'What you do speaks so loudly, I can't hear what you say.'
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunday 28 February 2021

 This was the first book I made this year, in my quest to explore different ways of adding pages or bindings. I've made 4 since then...😊 but this is my favourite so far. I played with gluing pages back to back, using my favourite mixed media cardstock, which is quite thick. It worked beautifully, until I decided to add a little 'spine' to the cover, so that they'd fit better... it was very slightly too wide, so the back page and the cover split the pages a little on the fold. I still love the book, so I haven't attempted to fix it, although I did cover the spine with washi tape, inked to blend with the background.  It's a slimline format, which I love, and a nice change from the square/rectangular ones I've been making. Can you see the cracks? Such a shame because the thicker card works so much better.





I can't find the back cover - maybe I deleted it by accident 😕 I'll get a photo and upload it. You'll notice my fave colour combo in the above last two pages, as on the journal cover I just uploaded in the previous post. 
I love this slimline format and always enjoy using this card, despite it being thicker and not as easy to fold, despite scoring multiple times!

Linking to
Simon Says Stamp Mondays, Anything but a card
Paperbabe Challenges, Anything Goes
Always Fun Challenges, Slimline cards (several, made into a book 😉)
Allsorts Challenge, Anything Feminine Goes
We Love 2 Create, Anything Mixed Media Goes
More Mixed Media, ATG - optional Red

Thanks for calling in today - especially if you visited both of today's posts!
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Stay safe! Almost there...
Cath
xxx

 Hello bloggers! Happy Sunday! and wow! We have more sunshine 😁It may still be cold, especially if not in the sun, but it feels so bright and spring like - it's so uplifting. There are flowers everywhere - what a joy! I finished off a couple of things I was doing this week and decided to make two into journal pages for my 'planner journal'. I love these dies because I can die cut the binding side but make the page any size I like - plus I already had some great planner page dies and they all work really well together.

Aren't these stamps (Art by Marlene) fun? Everything Marlene does is BRIGHT, so I had to follow suit. Her t-shirt is actually lime green and white but it scanned as aqua for some reason...??? It's an A5 page.

This one's been lying in my pile of unfinished stuff for ages, so I decided to attach it to a page. It was originally intended to be used as a cover - maybe it still will 😊 I cut the page with my Gemini but - as you can see - it has a habit of stretching card and warping it a bit, so they're now being cut with my Big Shot+. This is possibly my all time favourite colour combo, though I do usually add a touch of Salty Ocean. It's Peacock Feather and Wilted Violet. It's my current favourite cardstock for smooshing and inking - the inks move beautifully on it and produce some great effects, but they also seem to look much brighter on it. It's also pretty thick, which is good and bad - it doesn't score well, but is great for single pages.
Another very simple card finished off, using an old Time to Stamp image, which used to be one of my faves, though I did use her for vintage style stamping at the time. One of the things that frustrates me about Prismas is that they tend to cover the image lines - my bad colouring 😉 I often redraw them with a black gel pen (one of my favourite tools these days) but I have a habit of smudging them and producing black eye looks 😣 or smudged skin... the outside is usually covered when I edge the image in black permanent ink before attaching, but this image was already stamped and embossed - and the text is part of it, so I wasn't able to do that. I stencilled over a lemon background, though I don't really like the way it turned out... just trying to clear my piles of half done stuff...

This is another one I began last year and finished off this week... I've used it before, but this time I'd cut around the top edge so that I could add it to any b/g - don't know why I ended up putting it back on white!

And a very simple one...The image is stamped and clear embossed, then I added colour in the darker parts of the flower and drew them out with water, hoping to create paler colour, but there's so little card remaining after embossing that it doesn't really show up. Nice, bold image, though. This is a 6" x 6" card.

I've just finished and photographed another book, so I thought I'd better post the first one I made after Christmas, when I hadn't been able to stamp for a month or so... but I'll put it in a separate post. 

Linking to
Paperbabes Challenge, Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Mondays, Anything but a card
Allsorts, Anything Feminine Goes
We Love 2 Create, Anything Mixed Media Goes
Creatalicious, Anything Goes
More Mixed Media, Anything Goes, with Optional Red

Thank you for calling in today
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Stay safe!
Cath
xxx

Wednesday 17 February 2021

Hello!

I finished another little minibook yesterday, with a different way of adding pages. I noticed this method when watching a video of Marlene's new products, which included a little book die. It's very nice and makes it easy to make a book, but it's also very simple, so I thought I'd try it on standard pages. This way you can make it any size, too 😁 so it's more versatile doing your own.

Here's the book cover, with the closure in place, and without it. The one on the left is a scan, the other a photo to show that the inks are lighter than they appear in the scans. I just stencilled the backgrounds with Brilliance White inks, for speed.

 
Inside cover and back cover
 
Centre pages
(Somehow, I managed to delete half my page - duh! Sorry.)

It's not very clear from the photos - I need to take a photo of notching the pages.
I used a corner rounder on the centre folds of the pages and the covers when folded. This creates a notch for the binding elastic and works beautifully.
Then simply tie a long piece of elastic cord around the book, knotting on the outside of the cover's spine, making sure you leave enough to wrap around the closed book.
Then, simply add beads, charms, or whatever you prefer to it to make it unique.
I really like this way of binding and it's so simple. It's also really easy to add more pages as and when you like, because you just slide them under the elastic cord.  

This card was made for a friend's birthday - she's received it now, so I can post it. I loved this background when I'd made it - should've taken a photo! It's Abandoned Coral, Squeezed Lemon and a touch of Dried Marigold (Oxides). Background stamps are a mixture, but mainly Studio Light. It's a digistamp, so the ink isn't as black as usual.
This is a card I started before Christmas and finally got around to completing. I love the focus on doing things together. It's always easier to tackle something when you have friends to help, or even just to be there with you while you're doing whatever you need to do!  I think my favourite memories are the ones made with groups of like minded people all gathering to do something together. I also thought it would be perfect for Stamping Sensations' 'Colour My World' theme. 

Linking to
Addicted to Stamps 'n' More, Any Occasion - birthday
Country View Crafts Challenges, First Signs of Spring (birds)
Simon Says Stamp Wednesdays, Favourite Technique (Inky backgrounds)
Double D Challenge, Anything with a Heart (hearts added to book)
Stamping Sensations, Colour My World
Simply Create Too, Use Hearts
Daring Cardmakers, Share the Love

Thank you for calling in today
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Stay safe wherever you are!
Cath
xxx

Sunday 14 February 2021

 I've been making minibooks again, playing around with different ways of adding pages, with mixed results. These are two 'empty' books, made to add pages to. I used this Aall and Create stamp on the smooshed die cut cover, stamping and cutting out the bottles and the flower heads twice, to make them stand out. The one on the right is the back cover. Sometimes it's just a shame to add anything to a smooshed Oxide background because the ink effects are so beautiful 😊 

 

Inside cover - smooshed and stencilled piece added to the inside. I rounded the page corners to match the cover, but I think they need to be rounded on all sides for it to work perfectly as a concertina - or cut slightly smaller 😉 
For this one, I glued all the pages back to back, so it opens out into a long concertina. The above first page will be glued to the cover before I use it. The inside back cover is more or less the same. That one will be left visible. Lots of pages to go at here - 20 if I use both sides - and it will end up thicker when they're added, so even though the spine is quite deep, I decided not to add more pages in order to leave space for the layers, because it's already quite deep when folded. When I started this, I was making it as a gift, but I'm so messy, I got PVA on a couple of the pages, so I wouldn't dream of giving it to anyone 😂 I'll just have to keep it and use it myself.

I used Aall and Create stamps on this one, too. I thought it was a die cut cover, but now realise it wasn't. It's just a folded piece of card.
Inside cover - yes, the inks on my attached inner cover were still damp when I clamped it shut to make sure the glue dried properly - duh! I used the reverse of hammer card for the cover, so I had to cover it up with another piece.
I stitched this one, so I only added 6 signatures. I think it would've been better with paper, but it's okay. I used waxed thread, which is a bit thicker than normal threads. Simple to make, though.
I like the idea of having smaller canvasses to work with for a change. I think I'll enjoy working on page inserts.

Linking to
Stamps & Fun = Creativity - Everything, just no hearts
Mix-it-Up - Anything Goes, Fancy Folds
Alphabet Challenge - W is for Woodland Flora or Fauna

Thanks for visiting today
Stay safe and well!
Back soon
Cath
xxx

Friday 12 February 2021

 I got a new laptop at Christmas - notebook to be precise - so I've just been transferring some of my files across. This is the start of the clearout of what's left from last year! 

I KNOW I'm doing a lot of JK stuff lately but I love them! This one's just a journal page, unfinished - or is it?  I haven't yet decided which of my journals it will go into, which is why I haven't trimmed it - though it may fit into the one I just made, which I'll show you another day. These are digital images.

This one was just to use up some of the images lying around. I'd had the colours in my head for a couple of days when I made it. I like the way they work together.

I had planned to use this as a tag, then decided to mount it onto a larger die cut. I like these dies and have enough cut to make a mini book with them. I'm looking forward to making that. This one was an experiment in swiping rough stripes of colour across the card (Oxides) then spritzing with water to see how it ended up. I clearly added more water later, which is a shame because it turned out really well. I think you can still see the stripes a little. It should work well with most colour families.
This one - shock horror! - isn't made with JK images 😊
They're Katzelcraft images and always make me smile. I love the furniture stamps but don't use them so often, which is a shame... I did use Seedless Preserves again, though.
I stamped lots of these sentiments to use as and when I needed them, so I used more than one here.
I'm struggling with a connection speed of less than 5mb at the moment 😞 so I hope this uploads!

Linking to

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Cath
xxx

Monday 8 February 2021

 Just sharing a couple of cards I made last week... just messing around.
The sentiment of this card is NOT that of its creator, but the stamps made me giggle when I saw them 😁 I bake simply because I enjoy it!  


This was a first try with the huge background stamp. I decided to try a spritzed rainbow effect but wasn't so keen on the result. I thought I'd use it to make a card anyway, but it's big - 8". It will be great for sunshine effects. That little sheepie may change its coat - I don't like this colour. I used Appliqué on his ears but it's so old it didn't fluff up the way it used to.


One of my favourite Dylusions sayings... I used Versafine Clair for the duckies on the side, but when I was outlining the inking with black ink, I missed and the ink went all over my duckie image on the left. I did my best to cover it with paint pens, but it didn't work too well. The pink is Kitsch Flamingo. To me it looks like a deeper Spun Sugar - a Candy Floss pink. Love these ducks...

Linking to these challenges
2 Crafty Critter Challenges - ATG with a critter
Crafty Friends Challenge - Animals/birds
Sweet Stampers - Latest dies/stamps (ducks and baking lady)
Stamping Sensations - Colour My World

Thanks for calling in and thank you to all those of you who commented. Your comments really did bring tears to my eyes - in a very nice way. Bless you!
Stay well and stay safe!
Back soon
Cath
xxx

Saturday 6 February 2021

Happy New Year!!!

How ridiculous is it to be wishing you all a happy new year on 6 February - but it's my first post since 2020, so I really do want to start this year's blogging in the right way. Hope you haven't forgotten or given up on me!

I'm sorry I haven't been around until now - in all honesty, I wasn't able to sit at my table for long enough to do much after Christmas, so I did an odd bit of  watercolouring as and when I was able - and coloured some stamped images now and again. Then, after a course of antibiotics for a very painful kidney infection, I'm chuffed that I can now sit for longer - yay! I can play 😁

I set the monthly Mingle theme for KCUK on 1st and chose MONOCHROME...whose idea was that? I was actually wanting to do Black and White, because I always find that it kickstarts my creativity when it's decided to go on holiday 😉 but I opened it up to include any colour - along with black and white, of course. I also decided to challenge the girls to make a minibook. I've really enjoyed making them lately and know a lot of them love to make them, too. So, I decided to combine the two and make a very simple book - a concertina - but to make it in monochrome. 

Disaster #1

I decided on greens - because there are so many to choose from in the Distress range - and because it's a fresh, lifegiving colour. That led to me choosing one of my favourite stamping themes - leaves 😁 (It's also a way of pulling me away from my current Janet Klein and Tracy Easson obsessions!)  I pulled out my SU leaves for a change, with Cracked Pistachio, Lucky Clover and Pine Needles Distress Oxides and set to work sponging and stamping. I loved the result. But the whole project was a catalogue of disasters 😖 

I folded an A4 sheet of card into 3, leaving a small edge, which I thought I may use as a closure, so I left it. But I inked the reverse of the concertina on one panel, thinking I would use it as a 'cover'. When I came to use it, I'd stamped it upside down 😟 - it didn't matter until I added the words, but I forgot to check. So, I decided to add another panel to the small edge 'tab', but when I did, I didn't attach it very well, and left a sliver of very sticky adhesive from the d/s tape that I couldn't get rid of. I had the bright idea of adding green washi tape, so I did, inking it up to blend it in more. The next mistake was not using enough water with my white paint when I splattered, creating very unsightly thick BLOBS of white paint - yeuck! I tried to brush some into the background, but it was very fast drying and just wouldn't blend at all...but the water from my brush oxidised the ink a little bit TOO much - along with the heavy water splatters that had already done that. Wetting the inks inside the stamped images had also oxidised the inks, but that added more tone to them and was intentional. 

So here's the result...Front and 4th panels

All four inside panels
Just to show you how I had planned it, this shows it 'upside down'.
It was dark by the time I'd finished it, but this does show the oxidisation a bit better.

If this had been a card, I would've binned it 😂 but I did make a few cards from it afterwards....and it served its purpose as a sample for KCUK! 
Here's one of the cards...
Disaster #2
I was so determined to do something in monochrome that WORKED, that I carried on. I changed colour to purples - one of my favourite, favourite colours - again working with two main colours; this time Milled Lavender and Dusty Concord. I inked up the background with Milled Lavender (very pale), then sprayed water through my stencil to lift off colour... I didn't realise there was ink from another project on the stencil...I got a (not so) lovely yellow/green colour on my paled b/g.
I don't really mind it but it's no longer monochrome 😒 

Disaster #3
You'd think I would've learned, but I honestly thought the stencil was stained... it wasn't. I love the result, but this time I got some lovely Salty Ocean on my b/g.... so I shifted gear and made a simple card with one of my already coloured JK images.
I then washed all the stencils I use a lot in VERY HOT water, trying to soak off the staining and excess ink. Then I made this one - which actually IS monochrome, but I don't really like it... I used paint pens and Gel pens to colour.
At this point, the nice Mr Postie arrived with my new Distress ink colour, so it would've been RUDE not to play, don't you think? I quite like the Kitsch Flamingo but I wasn't sure which colour to use with it, so I opted for Picked Raspberry and a little Spun Sugar. I grabbed a tall stamp (as above) and used it. The stamped cheesecloth b/g is an old one from Stamporium - anyone remember them? I also added a little Hickory Smoke because the KF looks really good with grey! A kitsch giraffe instead of a kitsch flamingo...😁
I also made a little book last week and have other things to show you but I think this post is already way too long, so they can wait until another day.

Challenges
Mix it Up - Fancy Folds (Hope the concertina fits that description)
Colour Crazy Challenge - Anything Colouring
Sisterhood of Crafters - Create your own Background
Creations in (Mainly) Pink - Anything Goes in mainly pink
Papercraft Challenge - Dry or Heat Embossing (most stamping heat embossed)

Thanks for calling in and for remembering who I am 😁
Stay safe and well
Back soon
Cath
xxx