Pilkington Christmas - Has anyone seen these?

I missed buying these when they were on Ideal World, and have been looking for them ever since.  If anyone knows where they can be found, I would be eternally grateful.

Brayering

This is my first attempt at using the brayer, together with the Big and Juicy Foliage ink pad.  My very first go, ended up as the backing layer,  The second real go did not turn out too badly, having sat and watched Barbara Gray for 2 hours this morning.  Then I had to find a suitable stamp to use this background on.  I had intended to use one of my Pilkington countryside scenes, but I could not find them to begin with - not surprising as I am working in what amounts to a corridor while my craft room is redecorated.  I did come across this stamp, which was at the top of the pile as it was a new one, and it seemed to fit the bill nicely.  The result was trimmed and mounted on another of the silk cards, also trimmed and mounted on the previously created backing layer.  As usual, I now have to make a suitable envelope to fit the trimmed down cardstock - I never work to the size I have.  It may not be a complicated card, but then I am only following Barbara Gray, who did say that if you need to produce a lot of cards in a hurry, this is the style to choose (I wish I were half as good as she is).  I do need a lot of cards in a hurry this month and next month, so I think my brayering technique will get a lot of practice.

Holidays over for now!

This is Marwood Hill Gardens in North Devon - such a photogenic location and source of images for future crafting. Another great week away with friends.  We have been so lucky with the weather this year.  This time, the first part of the week was really beautiful, ending up the week with gale force winds and torrential rain.  The only other problem we had was almost a benefit - no phone coverage on site and no internet access.  That meant I could not update the blog, but I did do some crafting while we were away - some dry embossing with designs I had already printed out at home from the latest parchment disc from My Craft Studio, some water pencil colouring of prints, and a large amount of cross stitch.

This week, my work is to really and completely tidy my craft room in preparation for a partial rewire of the house, during which the electricians will need easy (!!!) access to all areas of the house.  Most of my stache is stored in cupboards with castors.  However, the piles of boxes on the top make it difficult to move them, not to mention the piles of stuff on top of that......... Oops!

Peel offs

Two very different, but simple cards using just peel offs. In each case, I had two different colours of the same design, and used the outline of one, and infilled with the bits from the other colour.  It is a bit fiddly, but very satisfying.  The Christmas one one was easier, but the kimono nearly sent me demented, but the contrasted mix and match brings the design to life.  My favourite of these two is the Christmas one, but that may just be because I love holographic things.

Just the good, today

I got my pictures back!  I finally found the answer amongst the help files.  I had to go into my browser, and clear all recent history, and immediatedly the pictures returned.  Computers are so touchy.

The good and the bad

The bad first -  what has happpened to the blogs overnight?  I seem to have lost most of the photos on my blog for some reason - hopefully they will return just as mysteriously as they went.

The good - our loft is finally getting a good clear out, and one of the goodies that appeared from the depths was my old John Bull Printing Set.  It contains around 40 small stamps.  I have removed them from their wooden bases and intend to clean them up and mount them on Easy Mount or some such cushioning.  Then they will go well with the old embroidery transfers I have resurrected, and the old cigarette cards.  Nothing is wasted.  I did throw away all the wooden mounts, and the ink pad (which still had ink in it, but I do not know what type of ink).  I think the distress inks will suilt them best, fitting in with their age and style.  When I get them sorted I will post some of the results.  I even have all the letters and the frames in which to create the words for stamping.

Guide Dog Emma

These are three of a series of cards I created to donate to the Guide Dog Association during a visit to their centre at Leamington.  The picture came from the front cover of Sheila Hocken's book about her beloved guide dog, Emma.  I wrote to Sheila asking her permission to use this picture, strictly for this purpose, and she was very willing to allow me to do it.  They all used the same basic picture but were slightly different in the way they were mounted, and were finished off with a variety of peeloffs, some coloured with peeloff pens to tone in.  I created a simple insert for each and presented them in cello bags to keep them fresh and smart.  They all sold within 15 minutes for between £2 and £3 each, depending on size, my thank you for a free and enjoyable visit to the centre.

Another Silhouette card

This is a photo I took of a dog belonging to friends.  Using the Silhouette, I was able to cut even the fence slats accurately to give extra depth to the decoupage, adding bushes and the dog on the top of that.  If I had had to cut the slats by hand with a knife or scissors, I would not have done it.  The file is now saved and I can change the size or change it in any other way I like at the click of a button.


The card was sent to the owner as a special, very personal birthday card - no chance anyone else could send the same one.

Start looking at your own photos, animals, flowers, landscapes etc, and see if you can see where to split a picture to make your own individual decoupage.  When my mother was in a nursing home, I used the picture on the front of the brochure to create decoupage cards for them to sell in the home to make a little extra money for treats for the residents (always ask permission before using other people's photos - if you have a good reason, usually you will get permission).  I also made sets of notelets using the same photo for them to sell.

3rd July 2010 - Christmas is coming!

It sounds almost obscene to talk about Christmas when we are in the middle of a heatwave, but all the craft programmes are into it already.  This is one card I did a couple of years ago, just after treating myself to a Silhouette die cutting machine, which links to your computer as an extra printer.  It is just a series of rectangles and semicircles put together to make up the door.  It was rather fiddly fitting together the small rectangles to make the panels, and I recommend the use of silicone glue or something moveable so you can make the fine adjustmenst to get them right.  The letter box was offcuts (card samples, mainly) of black pearlescent card and gold mirri card, with a slight gap between them to allow the insertion of the Merry Christmas.  A strip of gold mirri card along the bottom, and white glitter glue added a bit more bling.  The wreath was from an old card, and scanned in, and reduced to fit, then decorated with red glitter glue.  The cat was one of our own pets.  I used acetate for the windows and a metallic brad for the doorknob..  All the designing and cutting out was done on the Silhouette, fiddly initially, but once it is there, you can reuse and tweak it for another time.

The Silhouette was, admittedly, a relatively expensive investment, but it does allow you to really go to town with more complex cutting.  It earned its place for me by allowing me to cut perfect circles and ovals.  There are loads of free files out there on the internet to download and use, but you can make up your own just as easily.

Any piece of equipment I buy has to earn its place again and again, and this one does.  I have a number of photos I have turned into decoupage, and several files of decoupage sheets downloaded from other generous crafters.  I transfered them into the Silhouette software, and created the cutting files.  Then it is easy to print on your existing printer, then transfer the printed sheet into the Silhouette for cutting.  It uses registration marks printed by your printer to tell the blade where to cut - clever that!

3rd July 2010 - getting ready for another holiday

Cornwall never fails to impress with its sheer beauty and the quality of the light.  This is Mousehole, taken as we drove through (nowhere to park).  We are home for a few days before heading back down the M5 to North Devon for another shorter break this time with friends.
Retirement is such hard work!

25th June 2010 - another pastel card

This card used the same method and the same stencil as the last one, just a little more use of the co-ordinating pastels from Lidl, and a different embellishment to create a slightly different effect.

A quick application of cheap hair spray fixes the pastel to stop it rubbing off. I just used what I had to hand.

25th June 2010 - mixing mediums up

This card was an early one, done when my craft box was quite a small one. I printed the base card with a background paper, downloaded free from the net. Then I added a shaped vellum wrap, embossed and cut with one of my few stencils. I had found a huge box of pastels in the bargain section of Lidl, and used them as chalks (applied with twists of cotton wool - large economy pack) to highlight the embossing andshade the vellum to match the card. A small embellishment and a peel off Happy Birthday finished it off.

Pastels applied to things that appear to have gone wrong can really create brilliant results, that everyone thinks you have spent hours doing.

21st June 2010 - Embossing

This is the embossed design of pansies. The original design for this one came off a Joanna Sheen disc, which is all I had with me this week. I just traced it onto parchment with white water colour and them embossed and shaded it. I will mount it and use it when I get back off holiday.

Relaxing is such hard work - 21st June 2010

A little bit of tweaking and this holiday photo of an old bridge over the River Tavy will probably find its way onto a card sometime in the near future. Our weather so far has been incredible. In fact, we have spent today in the cool of the caravan site on the Lizard Peninsula. We shall go down later to Mullion Harbour to let the dogs have a good swim, lots of fun, and cooling off too. After swimming they both sleep all night - peace for us.

I have done some crafting while we have been away, just a bit of water colouring, and some embossing, trying out new techniques. I have loads of very old embroidery transfers and have experimented with several different techniques. I have scanned them all to computer, so I can print them out whatever size I wish. Printing onto acetate and using pens to colour in can be very effective, then cutting then to mount them in aperture cards. Just mounting them onto plain white card is also good, covering the edge of the acetate with peel offs or some other type of frame.

Another effective technique is to either print them onto vellum, using My Craft Studio Professional, changing the outline colour to pale grey. Then you use your embossing tools to trace the outline, using as much embossing as you wish to achieve a satisfactory result. The shading tool can transform a basic embossing into something really pretty and delicate. Don't try to emboss deeply to begin with, go over each line 3 times gently to avoid puncturing the vellum. Pansies are a really good flower to start with for embossing and shading. I will try to post a photo of pansies tomorrow, once I have transferred it from camera to computer.

Use what you have 2 - 13th June 2010

This is another card done early on, and I would make changes if I did it now. It still uses silver birch bark from our own garden, but also has bark from another tree, which sheds it naturally - the prunus serulla, which produces brilliantly coloured coppery red bark. Again the card was basic white hammered card, trimmed with the decorative scissors. This time, the silver birch hearts were mounted on white glitter card and gold mirri card, but the border down the edge was cut from the prunus bark. I did put strips of glitter down the red bark, but I would probably not do that another time, just let the beauty of the bark speak for itself. The Happy Birthday peel off finished it off.

Use what you have - 13th June 2010

This is a card I made quite early on, when I did not have much in my box. Our silver birches in the garden were shedding huge pieces of bark, as they do each year, and I wondered what I could do with it. I picked the cleanest bits and flattened them under a heavy weight. Then I used the Sissix to cut out the two hearts, which were mounted on a small bit of red glitter card, and then on to an offcut of gold mirri card. The outline heart was stuck directly on to the glitter card and the other placed over the top using foam pads to give dimension. The base card was basic white hammered card, edged with decorative scissors, with a small piece of Happy Birthday paper glued around the crease. It was finished off with a Happy Birthday peel off at the top. The whole thing cost very little, but involved thought and hunting for things to use, bark that was free, and bits of embellishment that were just off cuts.

June 12th 2010 - Use your brain power and time to save money

This card is an example of achieving an effective card without spending a fortune in money, just time and thought. This is one of Joanna Sheen's images, really clear and sharp. I saw it demonstrated on TV, printing on to expensive gold paper, and thought it was so good that I wondered if I could do something on the same lines. In my cupboard, I had some plain gold printable paper, so I tried printing on that on best quality print, with quite good results. Then I sprayed it with 3 separate layers of Spray and Shine, which really made the tiger pop out brilliantly. The Happy Birthday sentiment on the front was printed on vellum on text print, and instantly embossed with gold. That way you can choose exactly what you say and the design of the font etc to personalise the card completely. Both the image and the sentiment are mounted on gold mirri card, and then onto the base card from the Stardream and Majestic range from PDA Cards.

Today's Tip: At some time, you will almost certainly start on a project which goes wrong. don't bin it or destroy it yet. Put it to one side for a while, then have another look. If you still cannot see a way to recover, keep putting it away and going back to it. It is very rare that a project is totally unrecoverable, and inspiration will hit at some stage and give you something to be proud of.

Use your own photos

This card was very simple once I got a decent photo, which was just being in the right place at the right time. The bumble bee was so co-operative. The photo was matted and layered onto silver mirri card and then onto a backing paper. The backing paper was created from the original photo, by selecting a small area, and blurring it in my graphics program. The base card (Stardream and Majestic range from PDA Cards) was creased and folded to form the main card. The base was covered with the backing paper, the image mounted. The sentiment is matted and layered in the same way as the main image, with the text coloured to match the purple of the crocuses. It is fixed with silicone glue, with a thin layer at the front and built up at the back to create an angle.

First ever posting - 11th June 2010

I thought my birthday was a good day to start this blog. I was inspired to have a go by Silverwolf (Shaz), who is such a talented crafter.

My name is Margaret, and I have been (and still am) happily married to Geoff. Both our children are now married and have given us lovely grandchildren to play with. After years of having nutty Burmese cats, we now have two even nuttier working cocker spaniels to keep us busy and amused.

I only got started on card making 4 years ago when we were asked to do the wedding invitations for our son's wedding. The design was very plain and simple, with gold peel off stickers - just what they asked for, and carried through to the place cards. Of course, I bought far too many cards and far too many peel offs, so what do you do in that case..... you've got it - you buy more stuff to help you to use it all up. Then you need more equipment and more stuff because you do not quite have the right colour to do the next project. And so it goes on until the craft box becomes a craft room to give you space to work, then you find you are restricted to a small area to sit because the stuff has taken over. It is so addictive.

I have always crafted in some way, starting with embroidery at school. My aunt taught me to knit and she was a very strict teacher, insisting that I kept my fingers on both needles at all time. I cursed her at the time, but I have blessed her many times since for giving me the skills to knit evenly and fast. I taught myself to crochet from a book. Cross stitch started about 10 years ago when I have a bad bout of vertigo and needed to do something where I could keep my head and eyes perfectly still to avoid feeling sick.

I used to do cross stitch cards for those I thought would value the time and thought I put into it, but now, most of my cards are papercrafted. I keep pictorial records of all the cards I make, together with the date and who it was for - helps to avoid sending the same or similar card to the same person. It is also good to look back and see how I have progressed and to see how I could improve in the future.

I love trying new techniques and I do watch a lot of the craft programmes on QVC and Create and Craft to pick up new ideas. I generally record them and watch the bits I am interested in later. Every so often, I ring Silverwolf and pick her brains about a better way to do something, and find a better and cheaper way to achieve a good effect. The latest craze is to type your own wording to personalise your card, print it out and emboss it. Silverwolf showed me how to do that 3 years ago - nothing in this world is totally new.

Acetate is also one of the "in" things to use. Again, something I have been using for 12 months or more, either as a wrap for a card or as an enhancement for the main image. I notice that is now being used a lot on the various programmes. A technique that looks good, especially for the stained glass type of image is to print the image as normal on good paper, then flip it on your screen (most graphics programs will give you that facility) then print it onto printable acetate. Cut the acetate with a good border outside the image, turn it over and position it accurately over the paper image. Holding it safely in place, lift a corner and apply adhesive in an area which does not show. Once it is fixed, you can carefully lift each side to apply adhesive, cut it out and use on your card. To hide the adhesive, you could create a border to place over the top. You could also back the acetate image on to silver or gold mirri card.

Commercially produced craft materials are a good way to start, but I do enjoy finding my own ways to produce similar or even better results. The images on Joanna Sheen's discs are brilliant, and can be used in your own graphics program to manipulate them to suit your own project. Do not forget to take your camera wherever you go, and keep your eyes open for anything you could use later. A huge bumble bee on purple crocuses made a fantastic easel card earlier this year. A friend's photo of bluebells carpetting the ground made a superb backdrop with a wrought iron gate (cut on the Silhouette) placed over it. The same friend also took a lovely silhouette of her dog with the backdrop of the Lake District. A little manipulation created another easel card for her birthday this year - something very personal for her.

I intend to add to this blog on a regular basis, adding pictures of some of my cards, and any hot tips I get or discover. Hopefully, I can live up to this. Keep watching.