21 February 2014

Old but not forgotten

This week for Daring Cardmakers I had to dig out some old supplies to use on a card. I initially thought I'd go with tools as I tend to clear out older paper I'm not using. That's not to say I don't have any though! I bet there isn't a crafter out there who hasn't got a few dodgy bits and pieces lurking in the back of the cupboard. Come on admit it, you bought one of those somethings that was 'such a bargain' or 'looked like a must have on the TV shopping channel demo' that's long since lost (or never really had) it's appeal. :)
Anyway getting back on track I was thinking on how to approach this challenge and I first went digging for old tools but then thought about old scrapbook papers. When I do clear out supplies I'm often loath to get rid of full sheets of scrapbook papers and there's a few that have missed the cul quite a few times so I decided to dig those out and see what I could come up with.

Funnily enough they're nearly all black and white. I think this is because when I am crafting I use colour to pick out supplies and black and white never falls into that. Most of these say 2007 on them so I guess that's how old they are. The Urban Lily company I don't even think are around any more. Most of these are actually paper too, if you can remember when scrapbook papers actually used to be paper weight! I'm glad they're not any more though I do prefer a cardstock weight. Also on my desk at the moment are some of my newest supplies from kits so I ended up mixing in some of those cut off bits so I've ended up with a mix up of oldest and newest.



Here's the first card I made. I used the very old Urban Lily paper and added a little bit of new Basic Grey paper, the flower pattern is almost the same so I think it worked. I liked it just peeking out from the top too, like it's carried on growing. I think the fact the pattern on the Urban Lily paper was so 'established' already it's always been difficult to think what to do with it, it's not one of those full patterned sheets you can just grab and chop up and layer.
I also added some butterflies punched out from mirror card and matched that to some newer Lawn Fawn silver twine. It's quite funny just how many 'older' things you can match up with newer.

Another one made with another mix up of old and new:



This next one I've included because we were chatting among Daring Cardmakers about how long it takes to make a card or if you make a card and give up on it and start another one. I was saying about if I've used something painty or inky and it's not worked or I don't know what to do with it I'll ditch it. Well I've got this card this week that I started and then just couldn't work out how to finish. I tried using some old handmade paper and the black and white scrapbook paper, decorative edged scissors and a paper ribbler. I liked the texture on the paper, (the ribbler made it like a paper lantern texture) but I wanted more colour so I added some spray inks but now it's just like this and I just don't know where to go with it from here.
x Leo

14 February 2014

A Pop of Neon - Daring Cardmakers

First up sorry for not updating my blog in a while it's been neglected this year so far but I'm onboard to try and stay up to date for a bit. 

This week it's been my turn to set the Daring Cardmakers dare again and I've set the challenge of using a little 'pop of neon' colour on a card. I also sent out some little bundles of Quirky Kit goodies for the design team to use so do check out the fab cards the design team came up with over on the DCMers blog as there's such a wide range of inspiration to pick out from, http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com

Here's the card I came up with:


I started off layering up some patterned paper pieces together on the front of the card mixing in a little bit of Bazzill Electric Yellow cardstock which is amazingly neon, it's like those neon post it notes yellow! The top embellishment is a Kesi'Art sticker and then the bottom embellishment is made from wire with twine wrapped around it. I printed out the greeting on graph print paper to put inside the wire heart shape.


I took a little photo of the embellishment as I made it. It's just wire which was in my jewellery making stash that I bent into a folk arty heart shape then wrapped the neon pink twine around it and tied the ends together then added some Glossy Accents to seal up the knot. If you were really clever with wire you could make words this way too or other little embellishment shapes. I picked a heart to match the Teresa Collins heart print paper I used.

Don't forget to have a go at this week's Daring Cardmakers Challenge, If you make a card and link it up before next Friday you can win a kit of Quirky Kit goodies too!
x Leo