I seem to be on a bit of a computer frenzy at the moment so I'm striking while the iron is hot and posting another of the projects I designed for the free cover mount stamp and embossing folder set out with Simply Cards and Papercrafts in Tesco's at the moment.

Dotty Home Dec Hanging                   

Timing   45 minutes

Materials

Free Acid Drops & Whatnots  cover mount set

 A4 sheets of white card

12" x 12" Double sided brown dotty / pink paper

Grey board / mount board

Letraset Pro Markers

3 pink paper distressed flowers, 2 leaves, small white paper rosebud

Pink 3mm ribbon

1 x 3mm ab gem

Fine black liner pen

Paper sanding block

Black Soot Distress pad

Tuxedo Black Memento ink pad

Baby sponge or cut n dry foam

Brown medium gauge craft wire

Tombow glue stick

Paper Drill / Eyelet tool & Hammer

 How to create

1.       Cut a piece of grey board 18.5cm x 12.5cm. Cut 2 pieces of dotty paper  19.5cm x 13.5 cm. Using the Tombow glue stick, apply one of the pieces of dotty paper to the mount board, allow to Dry. Trim off excess paper with a knife and cutting board. Repeat for the other side.

2.       Sand all of the edges, going front to back only, until you have a rounded white edge. Do this to both sides.

3.       Cut a piece of white card 13cm x 8cm. Stamp the woman with mirror image over to the left hand side and the quote to the right hand side using the Tuxedo black Memento pad. Colour with Pro markers.

4.       Cut a piece of the dotty paper 13.5cm x 8.5cm. With the sponge and the Soot Black distress pad lightly buff the edges of the spotty board, the stamped white panel and the pink side of the double sided paper. With your fine black liner pen draw a line around the outside of the image panel, breaking it up with dots if desired.

5.       Layer the white stamped panel onto the pink side of the double sided paper and then down onto the spotty covered board leaving an even border on all sides.  Punch a hole in the top right and left corners of the board.

6.       Take about 1.5m of the brown craft wire, loosely fold in half. To make the heart, cross the ends over and gently fold down until the wire crosses at the bottom. Twist a couple of times to hold wire in shape. Adjust the shape of the heart as needed.  Thread one end of the wire from the back through each hole, bring the excess up to the top of the board and twist the end of the wire back around to fasten, snip of any excess.

7.       Cut 4 lengths of the ribbon long enough to make a good sized bow and tie them around the twisted wire a t the bottom of the heart. Apply the 3 pink flowers and the leaves to the bottom right hand corner and the white rose to the top left hand corner. Apply the AB gem  to the lady's ear.

Top Tip

Sanding the edges of any paper covered board gives it a much more rounded and professional finish camouflaging any rough edges and getting rid of excess paper. Gently buff the edges with ink,  or leave with the distressed paper showing, whichever look you like they both work just as well.

I think this must be a record of sorts for me, 2 posts in less than a month! As promised here is the first card project. I've selected a project for the free cover mount giverway set that is currently available on the front of this months edition of Simply Cards and Papercrafts available from Tesco stores only, it was also available on last months Simply Home made, again only available in Tesco's.

De-bossed  moonlit Monochrome Card           

Timing  40 minutes

Materials List

Free Acid Drops & Whatnot cover mount set

White 6" square card

Silver mirri card

Mid grey lightly patterned paper

Tuxedo Black Memento ink pad

Black versa colour pigment ink pad

1cm wide red grosgrain ribbon

9 x 2mm round red gems

Hard/firm rubber brayer

How to create

1.       Take a sheet of A4 white card, cut a piece 10cm x 10cm. This next bit can be a bit tricky so practise a couple of times on rough paper first. Take the free cover mount embossing folder and open it up. Cover the the half that has the black printing on the front, (the negative side), with a piece of spare paper. Ink up the brayer with the black verscolour ink pad and gently roll over the bumpy half of the embossing folder, making sure that all the raised areas are covered. Wipe off any ink from the surrounding embossing folder.

2.       Line up the 10cm square of white card with the printed side of the embossing folder, fold shut and emboss through your die cutting machine. You should have a black/grey printed de-bossed pattern on the card.

3.       Stamp the lady in the hat image into the de-bossed frame using the Tuxedo Black Memento pad. Colour the image with Pro Markers, To get the monochrome effect, colour the skin with your usual colours and then use cool grey 1 to 4 to colour in the rest of the image. To add a highlight, colour the bow on the front of the hat with red.

4.       Layer the image panel onto the silver mirri card and trim to leave a narrow, (2mm), border on all 4 sides. Cut a piece of the grey paper 14.5cm x 14.5cm. Add a border of the red grosgrain ribbon across the paper 1.5cm up from the bottom. Trim off any excess and layer the paper onto the front of the card leaving an even border on all 4 sides.

5.       Layer the picture panel onto the top left of the card about 1cm in from the left and down from the top. Layer the wording panel into the bottom right hand corner of the card.

6.       Add the red gems to the necklace of the stamped lady.

It's been a very long time between visits and I had to dust away a lot of cobwebs but here I go again grasping the whole technology nettle. I've started a new Pinterest account and boy is that addictive, I keep veering of course and staring at all the gorgeous vintage clothes out there. I think I'm going to have to add another post-it note to the monitor with FOCUS written on it. Next on the list is to update our flickr account with all the new card samples that I've made over the last few months and getting into a routine with blog postings.

I've tidied up the blog a little, there is a link at the top to my Pinterest boards and also a link on the left that will feed you onto the events page of the website so you can check out our show schedule. I've freshened up the home page on the website and included some card samples and I'm also working on a permanent projects page for the site. I can see my new computer is going to be red hot and my eye's square, not to mention a certain, already over endowed, part of my anatomy spreading from all the time spent welded to my office chair. Gym anyone!

I'll leave you with a couple of card samples from our new range of stamps and will be posting step by step instructions as soon as I have them written and a reminder that we have a stamp and embossing folder kit as a free give away on the front of this months Simply Homemade available only at Tesco Stores.

Hello every one,  I hope your Christmas preparations are well in hand and you have a little crafting time to help you unwind. As promised I've loaded the first project onto the blog, it is a card that I designed and taught in my regular card classes in Hockley. The instructions that I write up for these classes are also in inches as we are all of an age when inches were what we learnt at school and are a lot more detailed than the ones I use for the magazine projects, as with magazines, the space is at a premium and in class I have a very different mix of abilities,so you'll notice that instruction styles will vary from card to card. In class I teach using Marvey Le plume pens for colouring as I have enough of these for every one in the class so you'll find more detailed instructions for their use although I have added the details in bold for using Pro Markers or other alcohol based pens. If the lay out is a little clunky please bare with me, as this has been cut and pasted from the original publisher format and then edited but I'll get the hang of it in the end. Hope you find the project useful Karen Making Up With Betty Materials  A4 sheet of white card, 4 1/2" x 3 1/2" piece of white card, black paper, silver pearl card, green background paper, silver Mirri board, 22" of 1cm wide black sheer ribbon, 2mm gem, Single line Happy Birthday stamp, Acid Drops AD17 Waste of make-up set. Tools  Die cut/embossing machine, swirl embossing folder, and either Black Versa fine pad & water based felt pens, e.g. Le plume, or a Black Memento pad and alcohol markers, e.g. Pro markers, basic tool kit  ink double sided tape, (DST) or similar, clear stamp blocks.     1. Take the A4 piece of white card and cut 5 3/4 x 11 1/2”. Score and fold in half to make a 5 3/4" square card. Open up the card and fold the left hand panel in half, (left edge of the centre fold), and open out again. 2. Cut 2 pieces of green background paper 2 1/4” x 5 1/4” and 1 piece 2” x 5 1’4”. Mount all of these onto the black paper leaving an even very narrow border on all 4 sides. Run all 3 of these panels through the Cuttle bug using the swirl embossing folder. 3. With the fold of the card at the top, mount the 2 larger panels, (one either side of the crease/fold in the centre of the front panel) onto the front of the card leaving an even border on all 4 sides. Mount the smaller panel onto the bottom of the inside  back panel of the card, leaving an even border on the left, bottom and right hand edges. 4. If Using water based marker pens, take the smaller piece of white card and cut a piece 4 1/2” x 3 1/2”  and using the Black Versa Fine pad, stamp Betty, the border and the quote centrally onto the card. (when using more than 1 image on a panel it quicker and easier to line up the all the stamps onto a larger block, than to stamp each one separately). 5. When well dry take the Betty stamped image, the paintbrush and pens. Draw a little of each pen onto the plastic pallet leaving a good gap between each colour. Wet the brush and remove excess water by running it over the back of your hand. Pick a little of the colour from the edge, (don’t mix the brush into all of the puddle of colour as it will be too intense), and colour in the image. (Skin colour is a   watery No 30 Rosewood pen) . To make the image dimensional, add more layers where you want shadow, (at sides, etc).  If using alcohol based pens, stamp as above but use the Black Memento pad to stamp with and colour as normal with your alcohol pens.  6. When the colouring is completely dry, use the knife and the cutting mat and cut out the inside of the     mirror. A good tip if you have any ragged edges is to gently go around the cut edges with a black pen by placing the side of the nib through the hole and gently brushing along the cut edge. Apply the silver Mirri board to the back of the hole and tape in place using DST. 7. Layer this panel onto the black paper leaving an even very narrow border on all 4 sides. Cut a piece of the silver pearl card 5” x 4” and layer the stamped panel onto it leaving an even border on all 4 sides. 8. Cut the black sheer ribbon in half, bring it around the back of the bottom front panel and fasten it in the centre where it will be hidden by the stamped panel using DST. Apply DST to the bottom 1 3/4” only of the back of the stamped panel and lining up the top of the stamped panel with the folded edge at the top of the card, layer it onto the front of the card leaving an even border right and left.. You should be able to fold the card open at the centre crease. 9. Take the remaining piece of black sheer ribbon, , bring it around the back of the bottom inside panel and fasten it in the centre where it will be hidden by the stamped greeting panel using DST. 10. Stamp the Happy Birthday Greeting onto a spare piece of white card, trim. Layer onto the black paper and trim to leave a very narrow border on all 4 sides. Layer this panel down onto the silver pearl card and trim to leave a slightly wider border. Layer this panel down onto the ribbon leaving an even border left and right. 11. Add gem to the centre of the stamped border

Oh I have been a very, very, naughty blogger! I can't believe my last post was in April, where has the year gone. In my defence, I've been a trifle busy, Christmas designs, magazine projects, a whole new range of premium card toppers, not to mention the website and a hectic schedule of papercraft shows.

Now the show season has finished and I can say a fond farewell to the A1, (most of our shows were at the other end of the country), I have plans, dangerous I know, to tell the devil too many of your plans but I'm getting used to life on the edge. In the coming weeks I'm hoping to post some projects on the blog, cards I've created for class and magazines. I've go our flickr account up and running with lots of card samples to give you inspiration, just click on the tab in the top horizontal menu bar of the website.

All the new products are now online including our brand new range of Toppers. Printed on uncoated bright white 325gsm card there are 12 designs in all, some old favourites and some brand new Characters to make you smile, available at the special introductory price of £1.00 until Christmas.

We have also added some Acid Drop gifts to the website, Fridge magnets and Key rings. They make a great stocking filler for your friends and family, or as a little something for yourself,. Just £2.25 for the fridge magnet and £1.99 for the keyring. I should, at this point, say a big thank you to Bekki for pointing out that one of the key rings was missing a decimal point on the website and was listed for the ambitious price of £199.00, just a tad overpriced I think you'll agree.


So please visit the website, check out the changes and our brand new sample tab and I'll start beavering away on the projects.

Have a good weekend,
Karen

New Designs No Available Online

In True last minute style the new sets arrived just in time to code and price them before we set off for Alexandra Palace. 4 of the 5 new sets are now available on the website and the 5th new set should be with us very soon.

I'd like to say a big thank you to every one who stopped by our stand at the show it was great to meet and talk to you all and your enthusiasm makes sitting welded to my computer a lot easier. Any one who knows me, knows I hate technology, computers and anything electronic and escaping to the shows makes it all worthwhile. I also have to give a big thank you to Elaine who bravely volunteered to help me on the Saturday, (which turned out to be our busiest day ever), as Niki had only flown back from the Peruvian Jungle the day before. Elaine jumped in with both feet and took to it like a natural, hopefully we will be able to persuade her to come to more shows in the future.

Niki made it in on Sunday, jet lagged and tired but ready for action, I'm hopefully going to persuade her to write a piece about her jungle adventures and the very good work she is involved with there setting up school and medical facilities for village children in the rainforest.

Our next show will be in Bury St Edmunds, details can be found at the top of the page or on our events page. We should have the 5th new design with us in time for that. We also have new stocks of the Ornamental Frames set ADFB1 and AD38 Dressed to kill.

Class Project Wednesday April 10th Box Book With Secret Drawer

I got a little carried away this week with the box, book and bag class I promised, even though I missed out the bag! I saw the basis for this project in a magazine, a box book with a soft cover and a secret drawer for sweets inside and my mind started working. The end result is a Book style box with a hard chipboard cover and a windowed drawer that contains another hard cover accordion book inside and a photo frame on the opposite flap.

This is a very simple project although the finished result doesn't reflect that, the kit comes, as always, with a set of full colour instructions and all the templates needed. The covers of the book are made with pre covered chipboard which takes a lot of the donkey work out of it. In the class there should be time enough to finish the book box including cover, box, drawer and frame.

 There will be enough materials to complete the book at home if you don't finish in the class, or you may want to leave the drawer empty and use it a gift box for a very special present. There is also a choice of boards available  to choose from and a very good value kit. I really enjoyed making this project and after class it will be a gift to my mother as a memento of the day we went and flew owls and hawks.

As always the class is held at; The Old Fire Station in Hockley, Essex, it starts at 7pm and finishes around 9.30pm. The cost is still £10 and includes all materials need to make the box, full colour instructions, templates, use of our tools and of course refreshments. I will also bring some craft goodies for you to purchase. This class is an easy class and is suitable for all skill levels. If you fancy having coming along and meeting other like minded people in a fun and friendly environment just drop me an email at karenosborne99@gmail.com   we still have a few places left.