Things to do with Acetate...

I have loads of sheets of acetate here, and I was wondering what on earth I could do with them all, besides making acetate cards that is... so I had a little browse around the internet and came across an origami box, so I thought hey, that looks like it could be fun and I thought I'd give it a go and came up with this. How sweet!

I added some shredded orange paper inside and put a bubble bath 'orange' in it and then added the ribbon and the flower with brad on top! I'm really pleased with the results!

Love Fae xxx

I found them....!!!!

Just thought I would let you all know that the wonderful people at Crayola have decided to make life difficult for those of you trying to find the Crayola Blendable Pencils I've been raving about lately, well... I found them on http://www.craftmaterialsupplies.co.uk/ and they are now called Crayola 'SHADERS'. Same principle, one light shade one end and a slightly darker shade of the same colour the other end.

To add to the confusion, there's also a set, also by Crayola, called 'Blenders and Basics', this also has the same principle. One light shade, one dark.

If you don't wanna buy them online, just search Google for Crayola Shaders or Blenders and Basics.

Happy shopping girls!!! Get 'em while you can.

Home...Sweet...Home

And finally, at least for tonight anyway, a New Home card. Yes it's another Penny Black I know, but I have been rummaging around in my Penny Black stamp collection since the challenge was set and found a lot of stamps I haven't seen for a while. Isn't it funny, we have such a vast collection of stamps at our disposal and yet we seem to stick with the ones we use over and over again, whilst the others get a little neglected from time to time. Anyway, I decided it was time to revive this old favourite and give it a bit of a dusting. I stamped the base card with a couple of clear flower stamps in blue, green and light green and then stamped the image onto white card and coloured it in with my blenable pencils and then cut out the image and mounted it onto the card with sticky foam pads. I then added some blue and green mulberry flowers with green zoomz. Lovely!

Bubblegum Yum

Here's another Penny Black that I made this morning. I added the flowers once I had decided on the colour scheme.

The photo doesn't actually do it much justice as I had to photograph it with a flash due to the really poo weather we've had here today. The beautiful background paper is from a collection pad called SULTRY (Botanical Garden) by Basic Gray. I loved it and couldn't resist buying it when I saw it, as all of the papers in the pad are so beautiful. More a 'I want it and must have it pad' than a 'I need it pad' but hey, it was worth every penny.

Monochrome with a Twist

Well, despite all this challenge ca-fuf-flle, I've still managed to find some time to get on with some other cards. Although saying that, the challenge has been really good fun and I really enjoyed making my card.

This was going to be another black and white monochrome card originally but then I decided to add a bit of colour to the cat and balloons and then added the pretyt flowers and the zoomz. Sarn was kind enough to send me some scalloped circles, so I added a message to one of them and highlighted the edges with a bronze stamp pad.

Challenge Cards

I just wanted to let you all know that Lianne, my daughter, has kindly offered to be the judge for the Challenge as she wanted it to be fair and unbiased. Not that I wouldn't have been fair, but she thought it would have taken some of the pressure off of me in having to make such a tough decision. So the 'judge' will make her decision on Sunday morning and then we will announce the winner.

Hope that is acceptable to you all, keep the cards coming girls and good luck!

Fae x

e-mail address

Sorry guys, Sarn has just pointed out to me that I neglected to add my email address, just in case any of you wanted to email me your pics for the challenge and didn't already have it.

Address is: moonstone1405@hotmail.com

Good luck xxx

3D Diamond Card Tutorial

Begin by cutting three pieces of cardstock, 4 inches x 4 inches. I have used two pieces of card the same colour and one of a different colour so that you can see the positioning clearly later.

Next score and fold each of the pieces from one corner to the opposite corner (see picture above).

You should now have three pieces of folded square cards as above.

Position the pieces as shown above and tape down all the areas where two pieces of card meet. Tucking the last piece inside so that it creates a pyramid shape. The picture below shows the final result. Decorate as desired.

When you have the finished piece, fold one of the back sections in half so that it will fold flat, this will then fit into a standard C6 envelope. Obviously, the size of cardstock can be adapted to fit any size envelope as long as the original pieces you cut are sqaure.

I hope that you found this tutorial fun and simple to make. This is not my creation and therefore you can find other methods on the internet if you wish. However you decide to make it, have fun!

A different angle...

And here's my creation again, from a slightly different angle, so that you can see the 3D effect. Hope you like it?

Get crafting girls.

Penny Black Challenge

Well girls, here's my effort! Not that I can win the prize of course but hey, I don't think it's too bad. I made a 3D pyramid card as the base (1) (see tutorial coming soon) , then used some pretty blue background paper (2). I then used the 'It's your Day' Penny Black stamp (3) which I coloured using blendable pencils and highlighted with a white gel pen (thanks Katharina). I then added an adhesive fabric flower (bottom right) with a metal charm tied with ribbon, and then added three colour coordinated flowers which I attached to the card with various sized brads (4). I will add another picture from another angle in a moment so that you can see the full pyramid effect. What d'ya think??? Hope your efforts are going according to plan, looking forward to seeing what you all come up with, perhaps we can offer some other types of inspiration??? Good luck, Fae xxx

Faes Follies Challenge Candy

Well, I enjoyed making Sarn's challenge so much that I have decided to create my own Challenge for you girls, and anyone else who's interested... Here goes... Are you ready for this?

I plucked FOUR items from my inspiration jar and you have to make a card utilising each of them. I will be doing this as well (just so it's fair) and all items received will be shown on my blog and the best one will recieve a little 'surprise candy' in the post!

Email your finished card to me and I will contact you for your address (if I don't already have it), if you are lucky enough to be the winner. All entries must be received no later than midnight on Saturday 31st May. Here are the criteria:

1. Use a background paper you've had for a while but never found a use for (until now)
2. Create a shaped card other than square or oblong.
3. Use a Penny Black stamp, but one you haven't used in a while!
4. Use a variety of different embellishments (at least four!).

Good luck everyone, I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Monochrome Waterfall

Well, here is the Monochrome Waterfall Card,
Bank Holiday Challenge, Sarn gave me.

I made this card using only black and white cardstock. I cut the white base card and then stamped it with my favourite leaf stamp from PSX (it doesn't have a name, just F-2781). I then cut the black cardstock as instructed on Splitcoast Stampers website and made the waterfall base. I then stamped four squares of white cardstock using the same 'Sketched Butterfly' from Stampendous! on each of them. I punched a hole and threadded through the thin black ribbon for the pull string. To finish the monochrome effect but not to leave it looking too stark, I added glitter just on the Butterflys body on each of the stamped images before attaching each piece to the sections on the waterfall base. Then I added the whole thing to the previously stamped white cardstock. Et voila! Next challenge please Sarn xxx

Flower Girl

This card was made with Bella as the star attraction with some shoe embellishments that I recycled from one of my recent birthday cards, which I thought went perfectly with the colours and the design of the card. The background paper (from www.urbanlilly.com.au) was mounted onto white cardstock and a ribbon was added to finish. Coloured in watercolours and blendable pencils.

A Time for Music

Another fab Penny Black image, sent to me courtesy of step-mummy Julie. Added some of my fab red flowered background paper on red cardstock and overlapped with the main image. Mounted onto smoked grey and red metallic cardstock. Simply coloured with blendable pencils and added a green watercolour background at the base of the cello.

One for the Boys...

Another 18th birthday card for another lucky lad. Hope he likes it??? I really like this stamped image (again courtesy of a friend who stamped a selection for me because I couldn't make up my mind which ones to buy - I'm definitely buying this one, hopefully when I visit the Glitter Pot in June).

I just love him all done up in his leather and jeans, a definitely Jimmy Dean card (and who doesn't love James Dean???)

One Martini...

Another favourite card. I love this stripy background paper and can't believe I have used it all up already, but I have to say that I have made some nice cards and have been really creative with it, it's been great matching colours with it. As you can see in this card, I have colour coordinated the background cardstock and her top with the paper and the flowers. Sarn sent me the image of the cupcake at the bottom, already stamped onto lilac card, which matched perfectly fortunately. So I added some glitter and some white highlights and coloured the cherry in red and green. I then mounted it onto foam pads to add some depth.

Acetate Inspiration

Using some inspiration from Katharina's blog, I decided to try and make an acetate card. Her card is far more superior than mine as she used some gorgeous rub-ons on her acetate but as this was a first attempt I don't think I did too bad.

I love this image too, which I coloured with blendable colour pencils and added to a red cardstock and yellow shimmer background paper. I didn't have a fab corner cutter so I simply used a small circle punch and lined it up to try and get equal sized corners...

Added the flower and a brad for each corner.

Tea Bag Challenge

I'm not very good with Tea Bag folding, but I got some freebies with a magazine and thought I would give it a go. This was the end result. I thought it might be a bit OTT but everyone in the house seems to think it's okay for someone who might appreciate the hard work that's been put into creating it. Although in truth, there really wasn't much to it apart from the endless folding!!! I added some adhesive flowers and butterflies that I received for my birthday and finished it off with some lovely background paper and ribbon. It's growing on me....slowly!

Bloomin' Lovely

This is a really simple card but I love it no less. I just wanted to create something that was easy on the eye and could be used for any occassion. I recycled the border from one of my recent birthday cards together with the ribbon and then added the Penny Black image that Julie sent me, which I coloured with Sakura Jelly Roll pens and added some glitter. Four 'Zoomz', sorry Sarn, I know it's not three but I kept to the odd number rule by adding one Zoomz to the top of the image and three at the bottom.

Bank Holiday Challenge

Sarn has just sent me a Bank Holiday Challenge via her Inspiration Jar, to make a waterfall card in monochrome...watch this space girls!!!

Working Girl

This card was made for one of the teachers leaving the school this summer so I thought I would try to create her personality in the card. She is very bright and a really nice person so I tried to use bright colours and I liked the image of the girl at the desk (as she is a teacher). I coloured the image using watercolour pencils to match the background paper and then decoupaged her name in the same colours. Then added a bit of glitter to finish of the effect.

Weekend Challenge

This was an image given to me by my adopted step-mummy, Julie. She wanted to see what I could create with it so this was what I came up with. The photo is a bit dark but I think you can see where I was going with it. I coloured some of the image with a blue Sakura Jelly-Roll pen to add a bit of metallic sparkle and then used the blues in the background to create different layers. The adhesive silver wording is by Anita's and the flower is as before. Hope you like it Julie and it gives you a little inspiration for when you use your stamp. More challenges please, I really had fun making this.

Trapezee Mouse

This image was given to me by Sarn. I wanted to create something special with it so I made a tri-fold card using the template that I adopted at one of Stamping Caz's crafting classes. I added some coloured paper for the background and tried to coordinate the colours with the other background cardstock. Watercoloured the image, added some glitter and then the ribbon and the flower, finished off with a 'Zoomz' stone in the centre. Thanks Sarn xxx

New Baby

I like this card. I used a mauve base cardstock and trimmed the edge using the border cutter that the girls at work gave me for my birthday and added this lovely stamped image that was kindly given to me by a friend, which I coloured with blendable pencils. The new baby stamp in the corner is by Penny Black, which has been mounted using pads to give it a raised image.

Snowflurries

This stamp is called 'Snowflurry Tilda' and I think this one is one of my favourites. I've tried to keep it really simple as it is for another of our ladies leaving to have a baby. Abi from Science. Good luck Abi.

Tilda with Baby Tinga

Another great stamp. This is another leavers card for Charlotte at work, who will be leaving us shortly to have her baby. I was a bit nervous making this card for her as she is an Art teacher and is very trendy and always dresses nicely and I thought that she'd scrutinise every inch of the card. Anyway, I think I've done okay and tried to capture some of her personality and vibrancy. As you can see I have been whiling away the hours making some leavers cards and baby cards for a few of the people who will be leaving soon or at the end of the Summer Term (I work in a School!) Anyway, good luck Charlotte!

Baby News

This one is named 'Tilda with Magenta' which is why I chose the lovely magenta pink cardstock. The metal wording was a freebie from Card Making and Papercraft and she was coloured in with Blendables. Ribbon was bought from a local craft shop and the flowers are by PaperMania. I added glitter to her wings. This card was created for Hayley at work who left work on Friday to start her maternity leave. Good luck Hayley.

Tilda sun shine comes...

This lovely lady is called 'Tilda with Bow' and she was kindly supplied by a good friend who has so many I didn't know where to begin when choosing which ones I wanted images of. Anyway, she decided to do a selection for me and here's the result of what I created with them. I am visiting the Glitter Pot in June for a Stamping sesh with Caz (and Sarn and Sharon) so hopefully I'll be able to buy a few of my own... can't wait! What a lovely wait to create until the sunshine comes.