A Little Princess Birthday card

Today I have a princess birthday card to share, which was made for my friend's little girl.

From an A4 300gsm cream colour core card, I have made a gatefold card for my card base and used one of the backing papers from the Tattered Lace enchanted collection downloads front panels and inside of my card.

I added a personal verse and the dancing mice from the same collection using the having a fling die and the matching charisma papers.

For my princess castle, I used the 3D castle die from the  Tattered Lace Enchanted collection with cream colour core card and cerise card for the turrets. Great detail on these tower dies and I've used the flowers and foliage from the collection to embellish as a forest/secret garden around the castle.

The domed towers give just the right amount of dimension and not too much to make it a problem to go it the post, which is something I have to think about now when I make card unfortunately as there have been occasions when they haven't survived the journey too well.

Another one of those die sets and collections that I will get plenty of use out of which is always great.

Happy Crafting

Raymonds Snowman

Today I am sharing a little Christmas decoration made using the Raymonds digi stamp set for December from the Progressive Challenge on Imagine that digistamp.

This month's free digi stamp set download with the progressive challenge is really cute and perfect for a winter birthday for a child as it also has sentiment to compliment that but I have used the digi stamps to make a winter mobile to hang in the window of my porch.

I enlarged the Let it snow digi stamp disc and placed Raymond in the middle, with the Celebrate Winter sentiment, just above his head. I coloured Raymond and his truck in with promarkers, adding my stickles in frosted lace for some snowy texture.

I made the accompanying snowflake discs smaller. As this was going to be hung up, the other side of my winter mobile was going to just show the snowflakes which are so pretty.

I've displayed it on my tree to take the picture as it will show up much better and look a lot more festive......as well as not keep moving while I try and take a picture.

Funnily enough, it was the Christmas ribbon from my stash that gave me the idea to make a hanging decoration, as I thought the blue beads and wooden star matched the snowflakes so well.

I used my stickles in frosted lace also on the snowflakes and the really make them twinkle when they catch the light. 

There is some lovely inspiration on the blog challenge from other crafters who have also joined in the challenge this month which is always great to see everyone's spin on making something using the same material. That's what crafting is all about.

Happy Crafting

Festive knit card

Today's card on my blog is the second of the festive card in preparation for the Christmas season and with the last blog challenge of the year for us at Let's Craft and Create we celebrating it with a traditional festive theme.

When I made my card, I had just received my new Autumnal embossing folder by the Dreamees  - cable knit. These 6 x6 3D embossing folders leave a lovely embossed detail to the card and I think this embossing folder is going to be my new favourite as it can be used with so many projects throughout the year.

On my 300gsm card base, I used sage card from the Dreamees followed by some rich colour core red card from my stash, saving the 250gsm cream colour core card for the top. The design of the folder resembles my jumper, so I got the idea to thread a piece of wool through the card to make it look as if the robin was pecking it. (probably not the best choice of colour to photograph).

I used the Little Red Robin stamp set from last Christmas and coloured this little fellow in with my Dreamees watercolour pencils. Adding a little foliage from a mix of a few more past stamps from the Dreamees, the Fall & Foliage leaves stamps and an acorn from the Winter Woodland stamp set. 

I stamped the holly leaves using the Sketched & Shaded Pointy flower stamps using the sparkle 2nd gen dinky inkys in crocodile but as my card is quite dark, it's not very visible in the picture. 

The sentiment has been heat embossed with white embossing powder using one of the sentiment stamps from the Santa Paws stamp set and I have also used the smallest oval dies from the Dreamees Loops & Lace die set.

I had some stitched red ribbon that matched my red card that was just right to sit behind my holly. 

No flowers on this card and I have deliberately kept this one quite simple. As I have a love of nature and I feed the robins that nest in my garden all year round, it seemed very apt to finish this year's challenge including one on my card.

Our design team have also been busy this month with projects of their own and there is always lots of fabulous inspiration shared by the crafters on our blog too. If you are interested,  there is a prize for the winning entry, following our theme and a badge for your blog for the top 3 runners up. Just click on the link below which will take you to our blog challenge. 

Happy Crafting

Autumnal Wishes

Greetings! The card on my blog today is an Autumnal one which was made for my friends birthday.

Even though I'm always drawn to pinks and purples, I do love the colours of Autumn and with the beautiful paper pads from the Dreamees, in particular, this one I have used today, Autumn Haze, I made a decision to swap flowers for Autumn leaves.

One of my well used Dreamees stamps sets, the Fall & Foliage; which has been stamped onto some coordinations Tim Holtz textured card stock that I had left in my stash, then inked around the edge for a more natural looking leaf.

I find the Dreamees precision scissors a godsend for cutting these out.   Even though I find cutting out a struggle these days, as a crafter who loves making their own flowers and creating a project from scratch, giving up something you love doing is the last resort, so, you wind it down a dozen notches and just go with the flow.

Cut Bun was stamped on craft card. I love  Hayley Bignall's style of drawing all her character stamps and flowers they are simply adorable.

Using the Loops and Lace doily die with one of the design papers from the Autumn Haze paper pad, I added the leaves in a semi circle with a few for the bunny to sit on.

I also added a textured layer by using the Make an Impression Corrugated Embossing folder also by the Dreamees with some coral card that had been inked with the walnut sparkle second gen dinky inky.

My 8x8 card has a kraft card base and I have added some purple frosted berries from my stash purchased in a bundle of lovely colours by Anna Marie at a Craft Show a few years back some plum 4mm Dreammee pearls to finish my card off.

Enjoy your day whatever you are doing.

Happy Crafting

Just for you card - an cascade of Peonies

I am sharing a card made for another crafty friend of mine. Over the first lockdown, we decided to to do a make and swap between us and using two of her favourite colours, this is the card that I came up with.

 For this lovely lady, I decided to go for a cascade of peonies made using Fleurs Flower forming foam and my Tattered Lace Charisma Swift Peony die set.

I used some fabre castel oil pastels on the edges of the petals to tone my flowers to give them a more natural flower look and to accompany the peonies I also used the Fleurs dahlia leaf dies for foliage.

Using a lemon base card (8x8), I added an apricot layer of card to compliment the flowers. One of my favourite Tattered Lace die sets is the Fine Filament collection because of its detailed lacy square panel die. 

Just under the lacy lemon panel die, I also added a white vellum layer which I had smooshed some of my Dreamees dinky inky ink pad in gold mist (using a soft make up brush I had). This ink pad just leaves a hint of gold shimmer on the vellum, just enough to shimmer through the die-cut panel.

After adding my flowers I finished my card with a heat embossed sentiment using gold embossing powder onto a piece of vellum and adding just a few Dreamee olive pearls.

I was really happy with how it turned out and that my friend liked it too. In return, I received a gorgeous card that sits on my dressing table in my bedroom.

Happy crafting!

Marleens Stocking

 I have a festive card to share today which is part of a monthly progressive digi  challenge

The challenge is imaginethatdigistamp.com. To get this cute digi stamp, you need to sign up this month to register and receive Marleen's Stocking free this month.  After you have created and uploaded your project to the challenge before the end of the month you will then be able to do the same the following month with the next free image as long as you continue to enter the challenges on a monthly basis.

I am only using 2 of the 3 papers from my downloads for my card today. I printed the holy backing paper onto a piece of 210gsm A4 white card and used my Tattered Lace precious nested die to make my card base.

With the festive tree backing paper, I decided to make some flowers out of it using my Dreamees flower dies.

Entering a digi challenge isn't normally something I would consider doing as I am not a colourist, but I thought I'd give it a go, especially as this digi image was really cute. I do own a few pens but mostly use my inks to paint. 

I used a mix of promarkers and Dreamees dinky inky sparkle inks for a little shimmer on the hat and stocking. I also added a little highlight to the flowers which doesn't show up in the picture. The clear sparkle in my dinky inkys has replaced the clear sparkle overlay pen that I used to buy from Crafters Companion.

You can just see the texture on the Santa's hat from the stickles glitter glue in frosted lace. One thing I really like about digi images is how easy it is to resize them to suit your project.

Have a good day, whatever you are doing and stay safe.

Happy Crafting

Entered into the following challenges:- 

Creative Craft Cottage - winter/xmas

Sweet Stampers - xmas

ABC Christmas - xmas

Love to Scrap - ATG

Gothic Wedding card

Today I have a wedding card which I am now able to share, that I was asked to make for a gothic themed wedding.

I really enjoyed making this card as it was a break from the traditional colours, using a 

detailed black lace die with accent flowers to match the bride's dress.

For my card base and main structure of my card I used my favourite Tattered Lace die set, the Fine Filament Portifino Square lace dies. I used 250gsm black textured colour core cardstock, layering the lace panels with pinfair glue gel to add a little dimension.

For the insert I used one of the lace-edged dies with a cream paper so that a personal message could be written inside. We agreed that the card didn't need any wording on the front either.

A mix of textures for the flowers. I was fortunate to be gifted some foamiran flowers by my very talented crafting colleague Monika Cohenna, which were perfect for my card. Monika makes the most beautiful foamiran flowers for her projects. I mixed these with two more that I had made from pearlescent paper.

I used mars red pearlescent paper from Stamps by Chloe, which is a thick lustrous pearl paper, holding the structure of flowers perfectly. I die cut these using my loops and lace flower dies by the Dreamees.

Adding large ruby gems in the centres and some rich red frosted berries to my posy of flowers which I already had in my stash from Anna Marie Designs.

I've used some 2cm red satin ribbon on a diamonte ribbon slider across the centre of the lace panel of the card and decorated parts of the die with tiny black pearls which can just be seen.

To accompany the card, I also made a two-tone box saving one of the flowers that I made for the lid.

I used the Dreamees poinsettia embossing folder with some black colour core card to create the decorative panel on the base and lid of my box. This is a great textured embossing folder and think it looks lush as a box liner.

This is my second gothic style card of late and I'm loving the change of theme.

I was really happy that they liked their card. I wasn't initially sure whether do go down the themed route when planning this card or focus more on the colour and flowers, but this die set has definitely made all the difference.

Have a great day, whatever you are doing and stay safe.

Happy crafting