Belated Birthday

 Hello my lovelies,

Once again we have a Fabulous challenge for you over at Fab'n'Funky Challenges.

This week we are looking at 

Birthdays

Yes that's right, good old birthdays. Let's face it we all have dozens of birthdays to card-make for every month. 

BUT

If you are anything like me there is always that one birthday you only remember the night before, Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh.

On those days you need small and simple, so here you go

Compact but beautiful. No, I never put belated on the front of the card and sometimes I don't mention my error inside either. 

Stamps is LOTV (proper stamp not digi) and a wide variety of ProMarkers.

I can tell you that I am getting very excited for Fab'n'Funky's #500 post, so amazing to know we have been sharing our passion with all of you for so long.

Please visit our lovely DT's and leave them some love.

Now, I got an interesting message the other day from my youngest daughter. It read

"Can I be cheeky and ask a favour?"

My first thought , oh dear what does she want me to make now, and I was correct. Then I received a jpg of a sketch she had done, then a delivery

Now I'm not going to share her sketch just yet, but the above fabric arrived. Best part is she ordered it from a local-ish company (they are just over the border in Leicester) so I'm very proud of her for that.

I will share this with you in the next couple of weeks, first I have to convert her sketch into a pattern 😅

Back soon with more sharing

Hugs & Happy Thoughts

Buffy xx

Christmas card

 Hello again lovely peeps,

We are celebrating with Christmas cards over at Fab'n'Funky challenges this week. 

I don't like being the bearer of bad news but Christmas is fast approaching, there are only 90 days until the big day 😲 Scary!!

A sweet little stamp from LOTV. I've gone for a Blue colour theme. 

The squares in the corners are foam mosaic tiles I found in a little tub in my loft, I have absolutely no idea where I got them but I reckon they have been up there for at least 10yrs (so ashamed).

Back soon with more sharing

Hugs & Happy Thoughts

Buffy xx

Add a Button

 Hello lovely peeps,

So this week at Fab'n'Funky challenges we are adding buttons to thing.

We have all had great fun spreading the buttons and of course I had to dig out one of my favourite stamps for this. 

I love this little guy, Sunflower Teddy from LOTV. He is the stamp I turn to when I really don't know what I want to create. 

I think most of us have that little "Go To" item we rely on.

I went for simplicity, first I stamped my image using Tuxedo black momento ink and coloured it using ProMarkers (Sunflower, Ginger, Tan, Caramel, Burnt umber, Pear & Olive & Moss green, Pale rose, Orchid And Amethyst), A5 card blank, Kraft card-stock, ginham ribbon and butchers twine, TL flower & leaf dies, foam pads, double-sided tape and a Button (the vital ingredient.) 

First I stuck down the Ginham ribbon using double-sided tape I then wrapped the butchers twine around the ribbon.

Now for our stamped image. Use Black ink for the stamp (Note: if you are using alcohol pens ( Promarkers, Copics, Spectrum noir, you need to use a water-based inkpad like Momento Ink)

First and most important decision is to which direction the light is coming from. I have a very simple rule, I always have my light coming from the top left corner of my image. This means I can instantly look at any stamped image and know where the "Dark-Side" is 😉

1. Colour bear in Almond (this allows better blending in the end)

2.Add the Burnt Sienna to the shadow side of your character. 

See below as I accidentally add the tawny owl colour too early.

3. Now add Tawny owl, (remember to work in tiny circles it helps the colours blend better)

4. Use Tan over the whole bear  (tiny circles) 

The flower at the lower part of my card is not cut from coloured cardstock. I usually die-cut my everything in white cardstock and then colour it in to match my project.

I hope some of that it helpful and remember to check out the DT's fantastic creations.

Back soon

Hugs & Happy Thoughts

Buffy xx

Holiday Tutorial Time

Hello and welcome to our second annual Holiday Tutorial Time.

Last year we went through the "masking" technique. This time we are doing CAS, for those of you new to card-making CAS stands for Clean And Simple. 

Some purist might say it also has to be one layer, it definitely doesn’t. It just has to have a lot of unused space.

So let's begin:

You will need:-

Stamping blocks, stamps/sentiment, Inkpads, Markers/pencils/crayons, card-blank, A4 white card, scissors, double-sided tape/foam-pads, blending pads, stencil, and a HUGE sense of fun

Don’t worry if you don’t have a shop-bought stencil

 Here I show you a range of stencil, the top left I bought, the top right was free on a magazine, but my absolute favourite is the bottom stencil which I made myself. You can probably tell that it is well used and loved.

The first thing we will do is use our stencil

Use your low tack tape to hold it in place and prevent ink getting onto the card where it isn't wanted.

Ink up your sponge/dauber/foam and gently rub over your stencil.

You should have something that looks a bit like this. Now before you remove your stencil we will add our sentiment in the same colour ink.

You could just use a black ink for the sentiment, but I like to colour coordinate.

Believe it or not you could just stop there. Or add a few gems

So that could be card one

But I said we would do the topper card, so let's go...

So now that we have our card base, we are going to stamp our topper (the decoration that will sit on top of the card)

Now colour in your stamped image. I am using ProMarkers, but you can use whatever you have. Pencil crayons are great for beginners or young children.

Then cut them out (daughter doing a little hand modelling here)

If you have sticky foam-pads the stick them to the back of the cut-outs, if you do not have foam-pads then double-sided tape or glue will do.

Find your ideal spot on your card and stick down your toppers.

Hey presto a lovely CAS card, with or without toppers.

Here’s a little secret, the card itself does not have to be white, yeah I know, how about that.

Hugs & Happy Thoughts

Buffy xx