It's a Creative World

Earring Gift Cards

Hello Everybody! Joanne here today!

Shrink plastic seems to have gone out of favour a bit recently.  You don't hear much about it these days.  Well I still love it (I think it takes me back to my childhood, playing with Shrinky-Dinks!) and I mainly use it to make jewellery with my rubber stamps. I'm going to show you how to make a pair of earrings which can then be attached to a card.  Here's what you do:

 

First of all stamp your image onto the rough side of your shrink plastic using Stazon.  The image I've used here is from Blonde Moments. Colour it in with your favourite colour marker (I used a one of my Copics). Then cut it out.

 

This next bit is very important!  If you're going to make charms or earrings with your item, you must remember to put a hole in it.  You won't be able to get a hole through it when it is shrunk.  Make sure you punch a big hole - remember, it will shrink!  I used my Cropadile on the 3/16" setting.

Next comes the fun bit - the shrinking!  If you've never used shrink plastic before, don't worry if, when heating with your heat gun, it all screws up like mine has above.  It will flatten out again, just keep heating! A useful tip I use is to keep a flat bottomed glass handy.  Place this glass on top of your item when it has finished shrinking to make sure it is well flattened out.

 

Then all you need to do is use a couple of jump rings to attach your little heart charms to ear wires and then put them on a card.  I stamped a standard card blank with another rubber stamp from the same Blonde Moments set.  The earrings were attached to a piece of card by just piercing two holes near the top to push the ear wires through, then it was attached to the card blank with foam pads.

 

Here's another quick card I made using the citrus slice stamp from Stampin' Up!'s Tart and Tangy set.  Same principle as the hearts, but just punching a hole at either end of four of the slices to make dangly earrings. This summery card cheered me up no end on a rainy afternoon! 

Hope you enjoy this make and it inspires you to have a go with shrink plastic!

See you soon! Joanne xx

Fridge magnets

Hi from Caz! haPPy bAnk holiDAy to our UK readers :)

I love blog surfing, and discovering a new blog is like candy to a child. But I have my old favourites and this is one of the best. Velvet Strawberries was introduced to me by our own Maria. And i've been a frequent visitor since.

Andrea is a creative goddess, and when visiting her blog this week I was instantly inspired.

I love brads and I love to collect brads, but I also like to see them, which is why I have them in a glass on a shelf right in front of where I craft!

 

Now, how about seeing brads in other places around the house?

 

(Please excuse the serviette! I couldn't get a decent photo with the glare from the camera flash)

lol, using some pliers, carefully pry the backs off. PLEASE BE CAREFUL!

 

Stick a magnet to the back.....

And leave to dry :)

How lucky am I to have a big red velvet button to turn into a fridge magnet. It is joyful!

If you also like blog hopping, try out some of these, and if you know of a blog you think we'll like, PLEASE share :)

haPPy dAy!!
Caz
xx

Storage

Hello Deanne here and I thought I would share some of my new craft area with you :)

There's still a few areas that need working on, but its mainly finished and I've moved in. After a trip to Ikea with my best friend I managed to find all that I wanted (and more!)
Due to having such a small area to work with, especially the alcoves, it was becoming harder to find storage units that would actually fit in, but thankfully the trofast storage system from Ikea works a treat :)

The fact that you can buy different size buckets and shelves for the trofast is a real plus as you can see, I've got my scrapbook albums on the shelves and tools and papers in the buckets in this area.

 

When I went I had a list of items that I knew I needed to get, these were not! on the list but I couldnt resist them, a cream metal drawer set, also available in bright red but sadly that would not go with my very pink wall! I've got all my wool felt, fabric and sewing materials in these.

 

The other trofast has shelves too with my boxes full of goodies for sale, and my craft books and again buckets of paper and shop goodies too, and of course my lubbly sock monster :)

 

I do like buttons and until the shelves go up on the wall they are currently in my bucket under my table which I like anyway.

 

and last but not least, my craft table :)

 

I hope you've enjoyed your journey around my craft area and once the shelving is complete i'll share that too :) Thanks for looking

Deanne xxx

Yummy Summer Dessert

This is my favourite summer dessert "Bailey's Bombe". It is also the easiest dessert you can make and impresses everyone.  Every time I serve it everyone wants the recipe.

 

You will need;

600ml whipping cream

4 small meringue nests

5 crunchie bars (honeycomb & chocolate)

8 dsp. Bailey's Irish Cream or other liquer

Method;

1. Line a 1.5l pudding basin with cling film.

2. Whisk cream until soft peak consistency.

3. Add 8 dsp. of lrish Cream liquer, give another quick whisk.

4. Crumble the meringue nests and stir into the cream.

5. Chop up 4 of the crunchie bars and stir in to cream.

6. Tip mixture into the lined pudding basin. Cover and freeze overnight.

7. Remove from freezer. Tip onto a plate & peel off cling-film. Decorate with piped cream and crushed   crunchie bar.

8. Share with good friends ........or hide it and eat it all yourself!!!!!!!!

Enjoy.

Joyxxxx

Board books

Hi from Caz!

I wanted to share this little book that posted on day one of IACW, way back in 2007 :)

It's special to me and is such a cute gift for a Christening, wedding or to celebrate the birth of a new baby!

 

I used a board book that I bought at a village fete for 20p. Now I think I had it for about 2 years before I made this because it was something I just had to try and then, well it didn't happen! So i'm pretty sure you all have a board book laying around since goodness knows when, for the very same reason. Go on dig it out ;)

It only had 6 pages so didn't take too long cutting out the insides.

Before sticking down what's left of the pages be sure to decide how you are going to close it. My pages were almost dry when I wanted to add the ribbon! Thankfully I managed to get it in just in time or I would have been peeling the pages apart.

I gave it a quick paint and then sanded it for an aged look.

 

I covered the front, inside cover and back with patterned paper and added photos of us on our wedding day, and a few embellishments.

Next I made a little fabric cushion to go inside with a piece of ribbon sewn on, to tie my engagement ring to when I work in the garden.

 

The 'box' can be left empty to house special memories too.

haPPy dAy!!
Caz
xx

More sketch blogs

Hi Julia here again.

I have been taking another look around the sketch blogs.This has really helped my mojo and I think I am getting back on track now. lol.

This month I have used a sketch from 52 sketches...52 weeks with sketches by Julie Bonner. There is a new one every week and they have some amazing sponsers too. So who knows you could be in for some great goodies if you layout gets picked.

Anyway this is my interpretation of sketch #33. I have been using up some old stash as well this month. These are some of my old K & Co papers. The photo of Oyster Catchers  taken by my hubby Andy who loves going out and getting wildlife photos and living where we do in West Wales they is plenty of wildlife around especially on the river and around the coast.

 

 

The other sketch blog I have chosen is Creative Scrappers I came across this one a few weeks ago and really like the sketches on here and there are some amazing layouts for inspiration too from the very talented Design Teams.

This is my take on sketch # 65. I just love this photo of my hubby with his sister  catching up on all the goss when they met up a couple of months ago. We don't get to see his sisters very often so there is always alot of catching up to do. Use more of my very large pile of K & Co papers again.(Must have gone a bit mad on these at some point).

 

 

 I had to add a bit of extra paper to my layout under the title gossip as I accidently smudge some paint on my cardstock and trying to rub it off only made it worse. Thank god scrapping is all about paper and making each page your own. lol.

Anyway I hope you like what I have done this month and that I have inspired you to have ago at the sketches. I Would love to see what you do so please link your layouts back here so we can all share.

Bye for now see you next month.

Hugs Julia x

 

Keyrings

I love brightly coloured keyrings and mushrooms so decided to make some in felt.

 

You will need small pieces of felt in red, white and blue,

embroidery thread, I have used three strands for the sewing as 6 is too thick.

approx 3" of ribbon

3 small buttons.

I  drew a toadstool house on paper and then cut the paper out using it as a pattern.

Cut two of each piece (apart from the door) to give it extra strength and to hide the ribbon at the top.

Sew the door onto the front of the house and the buttons onto the roof.

 

Join the white parts together with blanket stitch in blue embroidery thread. Then stitch the roof on, I started near the top so that there is a gap to put the ribbon and keyring in at the top. If you add it last it makes it much easier to sew.

 

I hope this has inspired to you make your own keyrings, these are just a few I have made.

Debbie x

Recycled Packaging Souvenir

I recently revisited a beach I often used to go to as a child with my parents but this time I took my own children. I remember long walks on Seaham Beach and always coming home with bags full of polished glass bits picked up from between the pebbles -  a lasting reminder of Sunderland's glassmaking history.

This time instead of just leaving my glass bits in a bag I wanted some way of displaying them and loved the packaging from my HOTP creative kit:

 

I started by taking out the cardboard backing and then placing my favourite pieces of glass in the compartments before using other pieces to fill in the gaps. I then made sure that the packaging was stuck securely using Glossy Accents.

The next step was using a black permanent pen to colour the plastic before adhering beaded string around the edge.

I then added a ribbon and pin embellishment, stickers and the date before tying on a ribbon to enable it to be hung:

 

I now have a bargain souvenir to hang above my desk and remind me of a great day with the kids.

Thanks for looking!!

Jo x

Folded mini book/card

Folded tag and pocket book by Scrapdolly

 

Hi - Dolly here with a quick and simple folding class.

 

 

 

 

This is a really simple project that could be turned into a little card or even a small mini book. You can dress it up as much or as little as you like. The supplies are minimal, the folding is very straightforward and it can be used in many different ways.

 

It would be lovely with some pictures of a special event and sent as a small gift after the event. It can be fixed to the front of a card if you leave off the cover or just made as a little mini book filled with tags bearing quotes as with the main example.

 

Supplies for the little folded card/booklet shown below are as follows ….

 

• One sheet of patterned paper A4 or larger. (I used a piece of double sided Chatterbox paper)
• NB double sided paper works best, but you could use plain card as I did in the example as the end and just stamp it.
• One sheet of card (I used a sheet of A4 hammered card)
• Small length of ribbon
• Fibres for tags
• Embellishments or scraps of paper for the front.
• Scorer and bone folder (optional)

 

Step by Step

• Cut the patterned paper to A4 size.  (The nice thing about this little folded card is that you can make it any size you want. There are few measurements and they are easily variable to suit whatever you are making)

 

• Fold the paper in half and crease firmly. The more accurate you are with the folds the better the finished project will be. You will find you get neater folds if you score the fold first and use a bone folder to get sharp creases.

 

• Fold each side again into the centre fold line (figure 2 and 3)

 

 

 

 

 

• Fold a small section over at both of the short edges. You actually don’t need to measure it – no matter what size you fold it will work but mine was about 1.5 cm if you are someone who likes measurements. (figure 4)

 

 

 

 

 

• Fold a triangle down at each of the four corners, folding it to the quarter fold mark as shown in figures 5 and 6

 

• Once you have the corners folded in then fold back to the quarter mark again, creasing everything firmly. (figure 7)

 

 

 

• Along one end – and it doesn’t matter which end you select, make a fold (figure 8) at approximately 2cm.

 

• With this 2cm flap still folded, fold the entire thing in half (figure 9 and 10).

 

 

 

• You now have a flap along one edge. Tuck the shorter side corners under this flap. (figure 11) and this is what secures your book completely.

 

 

 

• Press down all the folds to make sure the book is secure (figure 12)

 

• You now have your little folded pocket book ready to use in any way you choose.

 

• There are 6 pockets that you can slip tags into, or add photos to.

 

 

 

• For the main example I made a simple card cover, decorated it and then secured the fold book inside with ribbon.

 

 

 

 

• To do this put the fold book inside the cover and make two holes through both the book and the cover.

 

• Thread ribbon through from the inside to the outside (figure 13) and tie in a bow on the outside.

 

 

Have fun makig our folded mini book and please, if your can, share what you make.

 

Dolly xxx

 

 

Tagged!!!

A fave altered artist of mine is  Efemera Ink I just love her quirky take on themes! Recently I've been having great fun and a regular  kick up the mojo by taking part in Efemera's 'Alphabet Tag Challenge' The idea is simple- Efemera choses a letter and a theme, all you have to do is complete a tag on that theme and include said letter of the alphabet!

Here are my tags so far:

A to Z:

B for Beach:

C for Circus:

H for Heart:

I for Idol:

Q for Queen:

So if you want to view Efemera's tags pop along to her Blog  Efemera Ink or go along to UKStampers to see more Tag challenges and see the wonderful work on there!

Stay Inky Crafters!!

GlitteryKatie x