Monthly Card Class - May

Here are the cards we made in May's monthly card class...

I didn't have a particular theme for this month's class, but as usual I wanted to showcase different stamps, accessories and techniques.

This card features the pretty Birthday Basic papers, and the Cupcake Builder Punch and Create a Cupcake stamp set. This stamp set is retiring at the end of June!

The crumb cake card is based on a design I found by a German demonstrator on her on her blog Stampin Club.  It uses one of the Gorgeous Grunge stamps to create a spritzed effect background, then we used washi tape and itty bitty  punched flowers to decorate. The sentiment is from Label Love.

A very simple but effective card and a favourite among the ladies at the class! The bow is made using the envelope punch board. There's loads of YouTube videos and tutorials out there for different ways to make bows if you want to google it, but I used this easy to follow tutorial for my bow.

Our fourth card was another simple but effective card using only 2 colours - Island Indigo and Soft Sky. The stamp is Flowering Flourishes - one of my favourites!

I host these regular classes on the second Thursday of every month at my house and they are becoming more and more popular. I have ladies who come every month and hate to miss one, and also I have new faces come along. Everyone is welcome and it's a really relaxed, friendly evening! See my classes and events page for details of upcoming classes.

Special Age Cards 30, 40 and 80

Hi again.  I have had loads of special birthday cards to make over the last few weeks - some were for my my friends and family and some were 'commissions' from work colleagues!

Here are a few of the ones I have made. I had fun making the rosettes which feature on most of them - these are really simple to make using the score board.

The 30th Birthday card uses some recently retired papers as well as silver glimmer paper.  The sentiment is Perfectly Penned and I heat embossed this with black embossing powder to get a raised finish.

The 40th card followed the same style but this time I used the Quatrefancy papers in the new catalogue.  the colours are so bright and cheerful!

The 80th birthday cards were for a work colleague to give to his dad - he wanted one for him and one for his son.  I used up some more retired papers for these, including Mocha Morning, and the stamps are Memorable Moments - which I embossed on black card with white embossing powder to get a chalkboard effect!

Class With Polka Dot Pieces

Happy Sunday everyone! Today I have some time to relax after a hectic few weeks and I thought I should catch up with some blogging!

Yesterday we had a fantastic crafty afternoon at our Summer Papercraft Class. Fiona Cullen and I taught 14 lovely ladies how to make 3 cards and a gift box using their very own set of stamps - Polka Dot Pieces - a brand new set in the Annual Catalogue. I think this one is going to be really popular - it's got flowers, butterflies and birds all in one set and a cute sentiment too!

With it being so new, there isn't a lot of photos online yet of cards and projects made with this stamp set. So my usual source of ideas and inspiration for my class projects was quite limited. But the stamps are really easy to work with, especially using the coordinating punches too, so it was fun coming up with a range of designs for the class projects.

Here are the 4 projects we designed for the class.

The first card used the bird. We coloured the stamp with markers and punched it out with the bird builder punch. The flowers are made from the Simply Pressed Clay and molds - we made these in advance of the class. The papers are the Gingam Garden Designer Series Papers.

The second card was a simple one with butterflies and the sentiment from the set.

The third card was an explosion of flowers and a sentiment from perfectly penned in the centre!

Finally a simple 2-4-6-8 gift box decorated with butterflies.

Some picture of the ladies in action, and some of their cards where they had come up with designs and ideas of their own...

Everyone got their stamps to take home in a goody bag which contained an extra treat...

We even decorated the bag and treat using the same stamp set to give everyone more ideas for how they can use the stamps to make more projects at home.

This was Fiona's first class since becoming a demonstrator in my team in May. She did brilliantly and everyone enjoyed their afternoon of crafting so no doubt there will be more!

For details of my upcoming events and classes, click here

If you live closer to east Leeds then check out Fiona's classes

Kylie x

Happy Father's Day!

Hope you're all having a lovely Sunday, and hope all the dad's are getting spoilt a bit!  Hopefully the weather will hold out for some nice walks or BBQs!

Today I am sharing the cards I did for my recent card class which was themed 'For the Boys'.  I let the ladies choose the sentiments on each card so they could make father's day cards, birthday cards or anything they wanted.

The first card uses the Open Sea stamp set and a technique I learnt from Lynn Fahey at our regional training event in Telford last month to make the watercolour-wash effect background. I don't know if this technique actually has name but it involves marker pens or ink pads, an acrylic block and a water spray bottle and it is so much fun! I was going to explain how it was done but I've just found a video on Lynn's blog so do check it out!

Products used:

Stamps: Open Sea

Ink: Early Espresso, Marina Mist, Crumb Cake

Markers: Marina Mist, Island Indigo, Not Quite Navy

Card stock: Early Espresso, Marina Mist, Whisper White

Other: Early Espresso Bakers Twine

The second card uses the Up Up and Away stamp set which is retiring next month!  This card would be suitable for anyone of any age I think. The cloudy background paper is from the Sunshine and Sprinkles designer series pack - one of my favourites. The sentiment was stamped onto a strip of Vellum card and wrapped around.

Products used:

Stamps: Up, Up and Away, Perfectly Penned

Ink: Basic Grey, Real Red, Lucky Limeade

Markers: Real Red, Lucky Limeade

Card stock: Bashful Blue, Whisper White, Vellum Card

Papers: Lucky Limeade from Designer Series Paper Stack, Sunshine and Sprinkles

The third card we made features the very popular owl punch! Most people who use this punch want one for themselves and I have sold a few in the last few weeks. This card is so cute with the owl peeping through the hole and the wood effect background paper is really effective.

Products used:

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Sentiments

Ink: Rich Razzleberry

Card stock: Rich Razzleberry, Gumball Green, Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Whisper White

Papers: Natural Composition, First Edition

Punches: Owl Builder,Bird Builder, Circle, Scallop Circle, Word Window, Modern Label

After a break for a cuppa and some cake we sat down and did this shirt and tie card involving some relaxing origami to make the folded tie. It looks more complicated than it really is - which is always the best way round I think!

Alex personalised her card for her step dad with my Notable Alphabet stamps - and I copied her idea and did one for my step dad too.

Products used:

Stamps: For my Family, Notable Alphabet

Ink: Midnight Muse

Card stock: Midnight Muse, Very Vanilla

Papers: Sahara Sand from Designer Series Paper Stack Subtles

Other: Mini Brads, Word Window Punch, Modern Label Punch

Well hope you like the cards,  My class next month will be summer themed - think hot colours, summer flowers and garden parties, see the classes and events page for details and contact me to book your place.

Kylie x

Belated Butterfly Birthdays

One of my new year's resolutions was to be better at sending out birthday cards on time!  I've not done brilliantly so far.  A few people have received their cards on time, but others have not been so lucky!  SORRY!!

To catch up I thought I'd get one of my favourite stamp sets out and make a set of cards to write and send out in one go.  It's so much easier to make 10 cards in a batch than doing them one by one as they are needed.

After stamping the butterflies in white all over the crumb cake card base I varied the design slightly on each card.

Now I'm up to date with my birthday card list - yey!

Kylie x

Sycamore Street thank you card

This is a quick card I CASEd from Julie's display table which showcases 3 of the products you can get for free during Sale-a-Bration.

Firstly the papers - these are Sycamore Street and are such happy vibrant colours!  Secondly I used one of the stamps from Madison Avenue and I used my Stamp-a-ma-jig to create a border.  Lastly is the ribbon - this comes in a set of 3 reels and also includes a pack of buttons too.

Products used:

Stamps: Madison Avenue (SAB), Perfectly Penned

Card Stock: Rich Razzleberry, Tangerine Tango, Pool Party, Summer Starfruit, Island Indigo

Papers: Sycamore Street Designer Series Papers (SAB)

Ink: Rich Razzleberry

Equipment: Itty Bitty Punches

Embellishments: Sycamore Street Ribbon and Button set (SAB), Rhinestones

Madison Avenue birthday card

Morning - sorry it's been a little while.  Have been recovering from a virus which left me completely drained and without much energy for crafting! Or housework! Luckily my very understanding husband told me it was ok - the chores would wait until I felt better!! So I'm gearing myself up for a mammoth cleaning session, and then I can catch up with all the crafting projects I'm behind with!

For now I'll show you a card I made a few weeks ago.  The design was cased from Julie again - from one we made at our quarterly team training event.

The stamp set is Madison Avenue - and if you love it there's still time to get your hands on it for free with a £45 order by 21st March!

Products used:

Stanps: Madison Avenue (SAB), Perfectly Penned

Card Stock: Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White

Inks: Rich Razzleberry, Pool Party, Basic Grey

Equipment: Bitty Butterfly Punch

Embellishments: Pool Party Ruffled Ribbon, Silver Glimmer Card, Rhinestones

Celebrating Daffodil Delight!

Happy Friday - the weekend is nearly here! (Thank goodness!).

Here is a quick, sunny project for you - it's another one of the cards we made at my class I ran at work (I promise I'll share that in more detail in a separate post).

The card is CASEd (Copy And Share Eveything) from several I saw online. The colours are Daffodil Delight and Basic Grey and the stamp set is Mixed Bunch with the coordinating Blossom Punch. The sentiment is from the Perfectly Penned set.

I received a beautiful big bunch of daffodils from my wonderful friend Louise last week and I managed to photograph them with the card before they started to wither. What a perfect combination!! 

Now I feel even more cheery!

I have another weekend of crafting ahead of me, beginning with our quarterly team training on Saturday which had to be rescheduled from two weeks ago due to the inclement weather!  I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone - it seems like ages since the last one...