Creating a shaped card blank from your Tonic verso dies

Good evening all...

Isn't time flying this week? Blimey... it doesn't seem two minutes since it was the start of the Bank Holiday and now it's all over, colder weather has come in and things have gone haywire!

I've had a few appointments this week with the chiropractor to try to sort out my shoulder. I really should learn not to slip and land on it shouldn't I? But it's finally getting sorted after putting up with it since early February and it's definately less painful. So, sorry for being a bit absent this week... but things went a bit bonkers.

So... what do I have for you today... well, it's another unedited video - a very quick one to show how to make a card blank using your shaped dies.

**Silly me - forgot that I was using a heavier weight card and when I went to put the lattice in the base it didn't cut perfectly. Just be aware that you need to watch the weight of your card, or at least turn it to get a good cut.**

Enjoy the video, I hope you find it a little bit helpful. xx

                         

How to extend your Patterned Panel dies to fill a card

Hello all......

Sorry I have been AWOL again, but there's been a speck of bother in the garden that needed sorting this past week. I have waged war on the slimy snails that are munching on my 'cumbers in the greenhouse and I've stripped it out completely - everything - and checked, rechecked and repositioned everything back in to evict the little blighters!

They've munched my dahlias, my lupins, my cucumbers, chili's and peppers and now this is war....! So out they went, into the wildnerness (aka the garden!) to live happy little lives and get stalked by our springer, Holly! I don't hurt them because I actually think they're really cute.

So... excitement of the eviction over, replanting and shuffling done in the garden, frog watching in the pond complete, I am here to share another little tutorial video with you.

This one is to show you how to extend your patterned panel dies to fill a card front. I used an A5 size sheet, but you can extend the pattern as large as your die cut maching will allow. I have shared a few hints and tips along the way, but I haven't edited the video, so grab some ear plugs if you need to. Haha.

 

This is the finished card. You can see that I trimmed down all the sides so they were nice and even, and mounted it onto a chocolate base card. The little dots along the centre were the leftovers from the die cut.

I hope you liked todays tutorial. I will try to get back tomorrow with another.
Until then...
Happy Crafting!

Morning morning morning.....

How are we all?

Today, I am having Pyjama Day number 2.... well, I say day.. it usually means morning.. lazy mornings are the best. Coffee, craft and Pj's... what else could a girl want eh?

As you probably guessed, my little bloglet has become the victim of work again.. lol. I have been down at the NEC and upto Glasgow over the past few weeks, and I have another trip to Scotland planned for this weekend to demo for a lovely gent called Adrian, who owns McOyster Papercrafts in Fife. It is a Tonic demo, so I'm hoping to see some familiar faces from the Glasgow show, and have a jolly good day.

I have been asked about colouring over the past few weeks, as I have been taking a little Polkadoodles image card that I made with the Tonic bow die, and everyone tries to run off with it. So, I thought I would share a little video with you HERE that I created for my Youtube channel a while ago.. must be a few years ago as I was still wearing my old wedding ring, which no longer fits me.. lol. However, I hope you get the drift of it and can follow it well.

The other thing I want to share with you all is this little card I made for the Pick of the Week for Tonic.

The die I have used to create the felt flower is the Happy Birthday Pansy outer edge which I have also used to cut the layer it is fastened to.

I cut out a few layers, snipped into the flower and heated it up with a heat gun. It's not one of my new techniques, as I have done it previously when I worked for Docrafts, but to use the Tonic dies makes it alot easier and as you can see, adds another dimension to your cards.

The outer for the flower is the pansy frame which is one of the new dies that are on a 60 day exclusivity to Create and Craft. They have sold out though, so watch the site to make sure you grab them when they come back in. They are VERY popular and look beautiful.

I've teamed it up with a little butterfly border from the dies I have in my box, this one is Mazarine Blu and is one of my favourite dies... so pretty.

I hope you managed to get your dies before they sold out... and I hope you enjoy the little tutorial..

Have fun.... xxxx

Today's another day...

It sure is isn't it... so, after the upsets of yesterday, I've tried to get back on the straight and narrow with work.

I needed to get crafting and make some more samples, check lists of what stock I needed for some upcoming shows, and get my To Do list in order! Well, the latter one never got done really, but at least I kept up with what I needed to do today.

I really can't believe where this year is going! I reckon I'm getting old, and time is just starting to merge into one haha. Tomorrow is February already! Ten months to Christmas and counting..

Tonight, I want to share a little more inspiration with you for the Build a Scene dies. These are so lovely in many ways. You can use them as they are, or you can get creative and only use small sections of the designs. Each creation will be totally different - or they could all be the same. The choice is yours.

With this card below, I have used bits and bobs that I had already got in my craft room - the buttons, the glitter card, the flowers and pearls.. and added them into the card.

I only used the main balloon on this card, and kept it quite neutral, just matching the colours of the card into the balloon. I think it looks really lovely - and the glitter card just sets off the sparkly sky perfectly!

Here are a couple of close ups for you.

The blitters just add that little bit of sparkle to the balloon. This way, you can give it to a female, or just use them to create a softer look to the finished piece.

The pearls just added that little bit of bling that was missing before I added them on.

Now... the balloon die is one of those that is causing people a little controversy. Although, I don't know why really.. but they say it doesn't cut. They say they got exchanges on the faulty dies, they say that they are no good.. and why?? Because they are an intricate die that needs a little encouragement to overcome its shyness.

I am attaching a couple of videos to my blog post here, showing how I cut my dies. If any die sticks, this is what I do... out come the J-cloths and babywipes!! Honestly, baby wipes are such a god send to a crafter!!!

Enjoy the videos... I'm cutting the Hot air balloon die with the Big Shot and the Grand Calibur. I video'd the Big Shot one myself in my craft room, but the GC video is taken from last Sunday's Tool Shed program from Create and Craft. I just wanted to show how they cut on any die cutting machine.

This is the Grand Calibur video  HERE
This is the Big Shot video HERE

How to heat emboss..

Another quickie here.. this one's for Beryl from the Docrafts forum.

She wanted to know how to do heat embossing, so here's a quick video.. enjoy!

Techniques and tutorial

Hi again!

Just popping on to upload a video I've just finished editing. Someone on the Docrafts forum was talking about using shaving brushes for creating clouds - but I mentioned that I use fairly dry babywipes.

I was then asked to do a video, so this is what I've done. And here it is. I've done the video in three sections - the first is the Baby Wipe cloud technique, the second is colouring with Promarkers, and the third section is using prisma colour pencils to shade your image... and you've got some really jazzy music to boot! Perfick eh?!

Enjoy!

Yep... the girl can dance!

Sometimes, when you do something, a while after you often forget about it.. that's what has happened to some old recordings I had on the camcorder... so thought I'd share one on here with you. It's been really nice looking at all the videos.. some of the dogs, planes and other things..

This is a video of my youngest, when she was doing Ballroom dancing a few years ago. This is her showdance that she did for her exams. And I must say, I was a very proud mummy when she got her medals and certificates too!

Enjoy!

Just lovely!

Doing a bit of blog hopping this morning, and I came across a link to this video.. Love this song and Josh Groban has such a wonderful voice.

Whatever this song may mean to you.. enjoy!

A quick video tutorial

Just a quick post for you, in addition to the one I put on this morning.

A few days ago, I showed you a white on white card with some dimensional quilled flowers on. I did recieve a few comments to say that some folks were having problems with the Big Shot cutting the XCUT aperture dies. This is also a comment that I got on the Designer section of Docrafts.

So.. without further ado - here's how I cut mine.

Enjoy!

A tutorial for you.

It's just a very quick post for today.. as I really need to catch up with things from yesterday. But I did do another little video, that you can see below, on how to tie a bow. This is one of two ways I tie my bows.. both of them are always from the reel so that I don't get offcuts. The other is just slightly more complicated... so decided to upload this one. This is also how Cheryl down in Craft Central ties her bows.. so it's not exclusive to me. I hope you can follow it. 

Now... as you will notice when watching it, that there's a space in the middle - I don't know what happened when youtube uploaded it, but there was obviously a spanner in the works.. I'll upload it again sometime today if I get chance. 

Well.. enjoy. I will be back tomorrow with a card or two.. promise!

Tied up and Turdus Philomelos!

I was a little bit tied up today.

When I was talking to Sharon this morning, her little puss bought a birdy into the house. Oh dear, poor Shazzy was in a right state - so I duly went to rescue her before the cat had another munch!

This was what the little beauty was.. (not the actual bird, but an internet version!)... a Song Thrush.

Not a really good photo, but believe me, the little birdy we got (me and Sharon's son, Fabian) was a little stunner. Such beautiful birds are the Song Thrush. (aka Turdus Philomelus).

It didn't turn out to be such a good end for the little love, but at least she isn't in any pain now.

Anyway.... onto my being tied up. Obviously in the loosest sense of the word!! I have been tied up making a little tutorial video for you all, of a folded tie that we did at my demo's this past weekend. It's been all poshy edited (!!) by my lovely daughter. (She is a bit ... naah...alot more techie than myself!) and here is the final result if you'd like to have a looksie.

Ok.. that's all for today - my head hurts from watching Lady M do the video for me.. if only I knew half as much as that girl!

Righty... off for now.. Check back soon!! Off to edit video number 21 now!

Multishaper..

What a suprise I got this morning... I visited the Docrafts website as I usually do in a morning to catch up on the Designer gossip (and also to find out when my next designer kit is coming out!) and was very suprised to see the video I shot in Bath up on the site..

Here's the card that I'd made.

All the elements of the card were made using the fab multishaper that came out last month.. combined with a bit of Tea Bag folding for the centre.

I don't need to tell you how to make it, because there's a video HERE.

I hope you like the card!

Who's the fourth??? ... and something new.

Oh Corrie!!! Help me out!!

Wasn't it good this week with the 50th anniversary of Corrie? Wow.. can't believe it's been going that long.. I can remember sitting watching Fred Gee, Betty and Bet ending up in the lake, and good old Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner. They definatley don't make them like that anymore do they?

But then on friday, I was sat wondering from then until now, who was the fourth?? Four Funerals and a Wedding.. there was the wedding, and there was Molly, Ashley and Charlotte who departed .. but who was the fourth?

And that lovely U2 piece of music at the end.. what a great piece - which is where my 'Something New' comes in.

I often visit other's blogs, people I have known in Blogland for quite a while, and when I saw Marcea's this weekend, I just had to join in and nominate my U2 song for Song of the Week.

So, without further ado... here it is, I'll share it with you today before I go. I'm going to put up some more cards from tomorrow, so check back soon.

Until then... enjoy!

A couple of little videos

I thought I would just share another couple of videos with you all this morning - I am eagerly awaiting my Sis coming today. She flew over from Canada a couple of weeks ago, and has been travelling around England. Lesley is coming to see us for a few days from today, and I can't wait - so I've really had no time to make any cards.

These are a few I was asked for at my demo's on previous weeks.

This first one just shows how to use the Embossing folders without a machine.



How to use the Bonding Powder and Hot Foils.

Less is more...

I must admit,I am totally in love with the new packaging from Stampin' Up!

Some of the stamp sets that are in the new catalogue have the Clear Mount option instead of the Wood Mount.

So, I thought I would just show you the difference in a little video.. I hope you don't drop to sleep watching it.. lol. Enjoy!

And also, whilst getting my coding from Youtube, I found this little tutorial on the side.. hope you like it too.

Miley Cyrus - When I Look At You

What a FAB song, I just love it!!!
Enjoy.