Friday, October 24, 2014

So recently I have been

part of a lot of meetings; singing solos and learning words for songs in concerts (not helped by the fact that where I had "men" or "women" singing that wasn't necessarily correct and so had to just open and close my mouth like a fish as I had no clue. But very proud of the fact I could do "uncommonly rare, very unique, peripatetic, poetic and chic" at great speed); interring ashes at the zoo (where our moment of silence was punctuated beautifully by the sounds of birds and animals, reminding us that life goes on); more meetings; attending an Artcards crop in Somerset; loving running the Shape course which involves people looking at all the kinds of gifts and abilities God has given them; organising a beleiver's baptism (have now sourced pool. Next issue is how to get water in and out of the pool and who is going to dry off where); starting to play with my Quirky Kit; feeling a bit not very well; more meetings; driving in my car enjoying the 30 minutes (average) run to Brixham and back where the sea looks different every day; also enjoying the fact that when I forget to take things to the other church I can be home and back again in 3 minutes....

aka: that was the month that was.
I don't have time for everything now. I'm squeezing in blogging otherwise it could easily be another month so here is a quick Daring Cardmaker catch up.
I'm going to go backwards - because I can!
Today's dare was to be Sentimental - using a favourite quote and possibly a technique to share as well. I went for a phrase from the Bible to create a wedding card
I printed out the Bible verse onto thick vellum using the fonts Times and Times Again and Angel War. I created a window in the top panel using a Spellbinder's die. I then brushed versamark over an embossing folder and ran the panel through a Cuttlebug, then swooshed perfect pearls over it to give a lovely sheen to the panel. I die cut the word "love" three times, stuck them together, put a load of Versamark ink on the top and then added sparkly embossing powder. Finally I die cut vellum and  some glittery self adhesive sparkle from Little Claire and stuck them together. It now occurs to me that I could have stuck them together first and then die cut which would have been less fiddly. Doh. There is a tiny bit of Perfect Pearls on the vellum words as well. The vellum was stuck to the front panel and the whole thing lifted off the back of the main card with foam pads.
 It really is all very sparkly!

The week before we were asked to use Book Pages on our cards. I tried a new technique to me for this one too - and I love the effect
 I stamped and embossed a Clearly Besotted image directly onto the page from an old book that I bought in order to use just like this. The page is part of the Grimm story about Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) so I thought a rose would make sense. I then used Distress Inks as watercolours to colour it in and love the way that you can still see the words peeking through. No stamped image is complete without some Wink of Stella pen action at the moment
which you can see better in the close up.
The backing papers are all from a Kaisercraft Christmas pad, including the scallop and tag die cuts. A little (ok a lot) of black distress ink and a little gold thread and the card was done.


I missed out on the space themed dare (so sorry!) but did do a card for the first week of October - a colour combo
I used some new bits and bobs on this card - the balloon string die and some glittery embossing powder. I already had Clearly Besotted balloons but had to make my own string (I know - torture!). This die makes it so much easier. I did the old stick it in some Versamark and heat emboss powder on the top for the balloons and the birthday words. I am always loosing the little dot on the i so find that using a sticky gem saves me trying to find it!
The papers are a whole mix of things from different pads that seemed to fit the colour scheme. I added the yellow as it was in the photo even though it was not in the colour bar. 

I did make another glittery card this month - well I made two but only photographed one before sending it away
I managed to make this slightly more fiddly than necessary (I did a better job of the second card) and really must remember to adhere thin sticky stuff before die cutting as I am sure it makes life easier! I have some extra fine glitters that I added to sticky backed material (numbers from PTI; circles are Spellbinders; words Clearly Besotted). I also added extra glitter to the Fancy Pants papers with a glue pen and Glamour Dust. The numbers are more pink than red in real life.

I'm hoping to have a little crafty time this weekend. I will be starting to put some projects on the Quirky Kits blog too so do have a look if you can