Friday, 31 July 2015

Let's Celebrate....

Morning all.... I was about to say Good evening then, but realised I'm later than usual trying to post my project for today. The silly laptop decided it was going to be silly and not come onto my internet for some strange reason - Gremlins in the cables I guess! But here I am at last. 

How are you all anyways? 

Things over the last few days here have been nice and relaxing - a little bit of housework, a bit of hairdressing (doing the daughters hair! Some things you never forget as you get older!) and getting back to having chance to do a nice meal with lovely puds too! Lemon Meringue must be my favourite this week. Very tasty it was too!!!

I've also spent a little bit of time working with some nice Nuvo bits and bobs... more on that on a later post! So, all in all, I feel very relaxed and chilled. It's quite a nice feeling me thinks. 

Onto the project ... and today, I thought I would share a little mini wine box and a matching card that I made for the Pick of the Day shows this week. 

The mini wine box was made using the same dies as the usual standard sizes, but I only cut two sets to create a square, rather than three sets for the larger bottles. 


Once you have cut your base layers for the box, stick them together as usual, and place to one side to dry for a few minutes. Take your bottle (chocolates, smelly candles, socks) or whatever you want to put in there, and measure the height.

My bottle of wine was 12cm tall to the base of the neck area, so I placed the glued section onto my guillotine and measured 14cm on the main body of the box and trimmed any excess from across the centre. Rejoin with red super sticky tape, or a glue gun for extra strength.


Now, because your bottle has a join in the centre, you will need to create a smaller wrap to go around the outside, or simpy use ribbon and lace, which is what I opted to do. I then cut the lacy panels to fit on the outside, measuring, trimming and sticking together just like before.

The little flower on the front edge is a Craftwork Cards topper that I cut and layered after I had coloured it in. I added a sparkler to the centre of the flower to give it a little bling.

Here's the matching card -


Again, I started off by colouring the Craftwork card topper to match in with the flower on the box, then mounted it up onto the lime and orange - same colourway to match again.

The sentiment I decided to curve around the outside of the topper once it was in place, so I cut the Let's Celebrate from the Wine Bottle Wraps set of dies, once from lime green and once from orange then paper pieced them onto white cardstock. This was then all cut out, stuck together and attached to the card at the ends, giving it a slight curve as you go along.

Now... the beautiful topper....


Isn't it just beautiful? I love the quirkiness of these little flowers, and they were singing out for vibrant colours. Now, you can colour these in whatever colours you want, because all you get in the pack is a black and white outline. Good eh?

I added some orange Nuvo drops and a little irridescent glitter to the top to make a centre to the flower.


You can see how this card looks from above. Something a little bit different, but I think I quite like it.

I hope you do too.

Until next time,
Love Jo xx

Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Cheers!

Good evening you lovely folks.... 

Sorry I haven't been around for a while this last week or so, things have been a bit manic - what with decorating, work, appointments, family time and a bit of 'us' time - time has just run away with me and it's been over a week since I came on here... I can't quite believe it! 

It has been nice though - we had a lovely meal out at the Hare and Tortoise near Rossington, Doncaster, and I can highly recommend it.... beautiful food and lovely staff. A definate to go again!

So.... onto tonights little project bundle and as you may guess, there's a new Pick of the Day on tonight being bought by Tonic Studios, and our lovely Jodie. I thought I would share with you a couple of my samples for the show which shows how you can use the dies for boxes and cards. 


This little card is DL in size, which is an A4 card scored at 10.5cm and folded then trimmed to create a tall card.

I cut the front of the card with the outer edge of one of the panel dies from the wine wrap and then cut out a sentiment - I chose Cheers - from white card. I layered this onto the back of the aperture and  stuck it in place. I had also inked the embossing and around the edges, but you can leave it plain if you wanted to.

The letters emboss so is perfect to give a little extra detail to your project, and the leafy swirls around the letters are just so pretty. I layered it up onto pearlescent tan cardstock, then mounted onto the card.  I chose a ribbon to match the tan in the layers.


My topper is so cute... I totally enjoyed colouring this little beauty. She is a digi stamp from Tiddlyinks. I thought she would make a great topper to say Cheers....

In addition to the card, I also used the same colourways to create a wine box with the same dies.


I kept it quite simple, cutting out the wording from the base colour cardstock and also white, and layered them up to give them a shadow effect. a simple ribbon layer and some pearly Nuvo drops in white finish the centre of the bottle. 

I hope you enjoy the rest of the shows tonight and tomorrow... I know I will. These are fantastic dies with so much potential!

Until next time..... xxxx

Monday, 20 July 2015

The Gift of Love....

Evening folks..... 

I hope the post today finds you all well, and five of my readers enjoying a little present from Tonic? The reason I say this, is that Tonic have sent out five of our Tangerines to randomly picked folks and they should've received their little gifts by now. I really hope it's someone I know from my blog. 

The Tangerine is now on sale in a selection of our retailers, and you should be able to find listings of who these are on our Facebook page and on the Tonic Gold page. It's quite an extraordinary machine - fully metal insides so toughness is key with this beauty!

Anyway, onto tonights card, and I have a couple of samples to show you from the Tag die, and the Gift of Love die. These were two from our previous shows, and they work together beautifully. 


I went for a pale blue, grey and silver look to this card, and you can see the layers were cut from various colours. The frame for the sentiment was cut from pale blue, then mounted on to the pale grey. Wording was cut, layered up and then mounted with foam pads.

You can see the tags clearer on the photo above, they were all cut with the tag section facing to the middle line, so that when I popped the border across the centre, it covered up all the bits I didn't need to see. It makes a lovely background doesn't it?


The topper comes complete with the frame layers and the wording, so it's perfect on its own, or to create a centre for a card like this. The font on the wording is just lovely.

As you can see, I dotted some Nuvo drops on the edges of the border and the frame too. I did it very quickly, so I did get the doughnuts, but they are so small that you don't notice on the actual card itself.


You can also see that there are embossing areas that you can pick out on the wordings too, so just run it through with your tan mats, or lime green mat if you are using the Tangerine, and it will emboss it beautifully.

Another simple card idea for you below too, using the papers from the collection and a simple bit of scoring and folding to create an envelobox.


I used the frame and sentiment to create a wrap to hold the box shut, but when you remove the wrap and open up the box, you have a set of tags that are simply decorated for you to put your photographs on. I will try to pop up a tutorial for this fold at some point, but honestly, it is quite easy!

The mini album on the inside has six sides, three folders in there, each with their own tag. So you can decorate to your hearts content with photographs, or clippings, quotes etc.


Well. I hope you like tonights little post.... it gives you a couple of different ideas of what you can do with the Romantic Cottage collection and die sets.

Until next time,

Jo xxx

Wednesday, 15 July 2015

Clean and Simple

I think by now you must all know me... I like layers on my cards, with bits of patterned papers and maybe the odd bow or embellishment here or there... well, this card is a little bit of a change from that! It is really nice sometimes to do something completely different and leave lots of white areas, remembering that not everything needs to be covered. And that actually, clean and simple is often alot more stylish. 

As you can see, I am keeping up with my posts for this week to show you some of the samples I made for the shows last weekend, using the Momento Frames and paper / card packs. 

This card below uses a few of the frames from the Regency Layering set of momento frames set and one of the smaller panels that can be found in the paper pack. 


I chose a 5 x 7 inch card and trimmed the top layer of white card down to a half inch smaller around the edges so that I had a deeper edge to the card. I cut an aperture in the top layer then added my outer frame to sit on top.

The smaller green frame sat underneath the white layer to give a little depth to the border edge. These layers were all stuck together using the Tonic glue, and then the little panel underneath was attached using foam pads for dimension. The whole panel was then stuck to the main card using foam pads too.


You can see that on this frame outer, I got the infamous 'doughnuts' with my nuvo drops... it wasn't intentional, but I had done it very quickly and kept dabbing the nozzle onto the cardstock and this is what causes it... but in reality, the dots are so tiny you can't really see it too much. I also added a pink dot onto the green border too.

So... that's my little make for tonight... I hope you take a little inspiration from it. It would be lovely to see what you've been making.

Until next time..
Jo xx

A note to say......

Morning all.... 

How are we all? It seems like it's a bit of a lazy day in the house of Austin today - all furballs fast asleep and snoring around my feet! The life of a dog eh?

Today, I thought I would share with you a little card made from the One Day Wonder products, although I've just noticed my bow is a little wonky! However, that sort of describes how I feel today - a little bit wonky!

Here's the card I wanted to share. The papers and card are from the packs that were on the show, and they are the Romantic Cottage from Tonic Studios. Aren't the colours beautiful. 


The main element of the card has been cut using a couple of sets to create the layers and chose a vertical sentiment from the papers. There are two matching sets of each sentiment so makes it perfect to layer up. The lacy work at the back of the main element is the tag die, and was cut then placed to each side.


Because the main part of the card had quite alot of dimension, I wanted to finish the top of the tag section off with a bow. I looked at a traditional one, but had some offcuts of cardstock leftover, so thought I would use those to create my own.


I love the dimension of this card... but moreso, I love the texture of the card and the weight of the paper. The colours of this kit is just 'so me'. I love it.

To finish off, you can see I used a little bit of glue and glitter around the edges of the topper and layers to add some sparkle.

Well, that's all for today..... I have a little bit of creating to do.
Until next time! xx

Tuesday, 14 July 2015

# TOP TIP TUESDAY

Today we are going to be talking about 

DOUGHNUTS!

Now, these aren't just any old sugary-coated doughnuts... these are our lush, glitzy, shiny, 
glossy Nuvo Drop mistakes


Can you see the problem with the ones in the picture above? 

The two larger ones at the top left are the correct pearl drops you are wanting to make, but sometimes you will get drops like the smaller dimpled, doughnuts that I have made underneath. 

So... why does this happen?

Firstly, there are a few types of pearl drops on the market, and they all work in different ways. Some of them don't make a dome, some of them aren't glossy, some of them you just hope for the best! 

The ones I am not going to name, are beautiful colours, but don't raise to make a rounded pearl, and you create your drop by putting the point on the cardstock and press..... they don't have the ability to create a rounded pearl that is self levelling like the Tonic Nuvo drops, hence you would use them in different ways to ours. 

The Tonic Nuvo drops are self levelling, and if you try to use them in the same way as other brands, it isn't going to work. You will get doughnuts!

To avoid this, use the nozzle of the dropper OFF the cardstock, lifting it away so it isn't contacting your card at all, and press gently to create the size pearl you require. 

DO NOT press the nozzle back into the pearl as this will push out your shape and as it dries creates the doughnuts that you can see above. However, when you are creating very small dots around the edges of a frame etc, you quite often want to do it very quickly... tiny doughnuts do not show up as much as larger ones, so use your own discretion to the effect you are happy to achieve. 

I hope this helps. xx

A little bit of vintage....

Mmmmmmm.... these new products from Tonic are really beautiful if I say so myself!!

Hi folks. I thought - seeing as I had a few minutes - I would share a couple of makes that I created for the shows I bought to Create and Craft at the weekend. As you may know, Tonic had the One Day Wonder, and it was down to me to introduce all of you wonderful crafters to the lusciousness of the Momento Frames and matching paper and card packs. 

Look at the card below to see just how beautiful it goes together. We had a range of cardstock - 10 sheets in all, 5 different romantic pinky tones at a lovely 216gsm, which worked together with the beautiful backing papers. Now. These aren't papers! They are more like a thin cardstock, 230gsm which is perfect for your diecutting and also for producing matching boxes for your card projects. 

They have a very old fashioned, cottage-y, vintage feel to them, and I had to pull in the reins to stop myself from completely using my packs!! 


The card above was made using a chocolate brown base and had an acetate frontage to it, on which I placed my topper. The sentiment was cut from one of the horizontal sheets in the paper pack - of which you get a total of two horizontals, and two verticals, so there are lots to go at!  The papers are also full 12 x 12 inch sheets, so you get lots out of it if you stick to making smaller cards, which are perfect for this size topper. I made a 5 3/4 inch card, which on a score board is the half A4 line, then turned and scored on half A4 again, and you can see the topper is a great fit.


The topper was cut out using the largest of the Momento Regency Layering frames, you get six in the pack of these, and then I just used an acetate layer and layers of card to create the desired type of frame. This was all stuck together with foam pads and glue. I added some nuvo drops to the edges of the frames as you can see.


The swirls were the acorn leaves from the Rococo petite range from a while ago, and the back part of the flower is the buttercup from the Entwining Trellis dies. The resin flower is a button I had, and I cut the back off and stuck it all together with my Tonic Glue Gun.

In contrast to the feminine girly card above, how about something more masculine?

I decided to use an image I had coloured quite a while ago, and cut it out with the Regency frames again. Doesn't it look different??


I picked up the colours from the pens I had used to colour and layered again onto dark brown cardstock. I think this must be my new favourite colour!!

I added some pricking detail around the edge of the top section for interest mainly... I don't really do inky edges, but wanted something to lift it a little... so pricky picky dots did the trick.


Well... I hope you liked the shows at the weekend, just as much as I enjoyed bringing them to you. It's a great little collection of dies, card and paper to work with, and I'm sure those who receive it will just LOVE it!

Show me what you do with it if you have ordered and recieved it... it would be lovely to see.

Until next time...... happy Crafting!
Jo xxx

Thursday, 9 July 2015

In the pink....

Hi there you gorgeous blogging friends.... 

Tonight, I'm not quite feeling myself... one or two things going through my mind which makes you ask the question "Why?" 

Still, not something I really want to dwell on, so moving swiftly onto tonights card and I thought I would share this little pink and grey combo with you. The dies I have used for this card are the Girls Night Out stiletto shoes and the heart from the Chelsea bag set. They work so well together. 


The first thing I did was to decide on the colours I wanted to use on my card - I had already found this suede cardstock, which was an old Doodlebug cardstock, and decided I wanted to use that for my shoes, and wondered what colours to go with it. As you can see, I opted for a slate grey and pink. 


The shoes were cut from the suede card, which incidentally cuts fantastically! And then I stuck the shoes onto white cardstock and cut around the outside edges. The flowers were highlighted with a little pink pen and I used grey around the outside of the swirls on the shoes to add some depth and detail.


I added some Nuvo drops to the flowers on the shoes, I used the white, and I also added some larger black pearl drops to the corners of the card, but sprinkled them with glitter to add some extra sparkle.

Sorry for the quick post tonight, but too many things going through my mind.

until next time.
Jo x

Wednesday, 8 July 2015

Glitz and Glamour....

Evening all.... This ol' blogging malarky is getting a bit regular again isn't it? To be honest, it's lovely to get back into it.... coming lazing in bed on an evening, laptop on my knee, furbabies snoring all around and looking back on the past few days as to what to jot down to write has been great fun. 

So, what has this week bought me? Well, I've had a couple of birthdays - my daughter Martina turned 19 and my fluffy boy, Scooby, had his birthday the day after. I've also had a day down at Create and Craft bringing you the Girls Night Out Craftinator, which was quite a giggle.... and really not me. 

A bit like the title of this post. I can honestly say, I don't do Glitz and Glamour very well... give me an old jumper to chuck over my back and a pair of jeans and slippers, and that's me settled for the day ahead. Hehe. That and a pair of pyjama's - every girl needs a PJ day... and mine was today. 

So... onto todays post.. and it is all about the Bling!

For this card, the main focus of it was the sentiment. But I really wanted something to go with it, so I chose this lovely stamp from Crafters Companion, from the Frou Frou range - it is one of my favourites I admit... 

I also wanted to add a little extra sparkle, so I made some sparkly jelly tots with my glue gun and the Nuvo glitters, as well as adding some glitter card along the border in the centre, around the image and on top of the diamond in the sentiment. 


You can see just how the diamond was created on here. I layered up the wordings using the colours from the cardstock - pinks and purples, and I drop shadowed them to give it a glow. I then cut the same sentiment from the glitter cardstock, but positioning it mainly to get the diamond. I trimmed it out completely from the glitter card and stuck it to the top of the shadowed wording.


A little blingy or what?!


The only other extra thing I needed was for my little character to hold something in her hands, so I created a sort of blobby-splodgy-gluey-doo-dah for her to hold. I don't know what it is... maybe a vase.. but it finished the topper off with some shine. **smile**

The image, in case you are wondering, was coloured using alcohol pens.

I hope you like the project for tonight... until next time... happy crafting xxx

Tuesday, 7 July 2015

Handbags.... gladrags.... and fairies!

If I say so myself, this is a perfect little combination. I do love bags. Not too sure about the Gladrags - give me something oversized, frumpy and comfy! As for faires... who doesn't love fairies?? Not too sure about the real life looking ones, but cute looking ones are good for me. 

Large, oversized and comfy sort of describes my attire for the last few days - blimey it's been a little hot, hot, hot hasn't it?! So.. out with the crop trousers, floppy tops and maxi dresses. And what happens?? The rain arrives. But, I will remain positive and I know that the sun will come back at the weekend. lol. 

Anyway.. that's what tonight's post is all about. I have a little Chelsea handbag to show you from the Craftinator for this month, and also a little card that uses the handbag elements in a slightly different way. 


As you can see, the handbag was made from navy blue card, and it takes just TWO cuts to make the bag - fantastic or what?? They join at the base and then the pieces just fold up together. This means you can batch make the bases and just decorate as you need them.

I chose to do mine with a glitter card. It does shine blue, black and silver, although you can't quite see all the colours within the card which is a shame.


The lacework that comes with the bag will create a lacy section to fit in or on the bag fronts, flaps and sides. However, I chose the outside edge to cut the glitter card and then just decorated the flap up with the little fasteners you get (this was the silver bit) and I used a cameo from my stash, from Hobbycraft I think, and a small bow.

But... if you choose to use the various lacy elements of the bag on their own, on your cards, you can create something like the card below.....


The little triangular sections at the side of the topper were from the Chelsea bag, and these lace sections fit onto the top flap. That's if you chose to do that....

I also used the wordings from the collection to add my sentiment. And can you see the lipstick? That was one of the Rococo dies... it makes an awesome border!


I used the star layering dies to cut the stars to add some sparkle to the background. You don't have to add these, but I just liked it. Once I had stamped and coloured my fairy, I also added some of our fantastic glitters to add a little sparkle.

I am going to have to go and get some sleep now... the Craftinator is back on over the next few days and I am doing tomorrows shows... our lovely Jodie will be back on Wednesday xx

Friday, 3 July 2015

Feeling Twitty...

Good evening you lovely people... how are we all? 

Feeling Twitty... what a title, eh? Well, I am in fact feeling a little like that tonight. It's not been the best of weeks really with one thing or another if I'm honest. 

The eldest daughter was out in Tunisia when the terrorist attack happened, but thankfully, three days into her well deserved and looked forward to holiday, she was flown back on an emergency flight home with her two friends. She was mighty annoyed, but as a mummy, I was so relieved. 

I can't tell you what I felt when I heard the news, and I thought, 'oh she's not going to be near there...'. Only to realise that she was in fact not that far away. It was about an inch on Google maps!!!! My heart sank, and I was relieved to get a text from her saying that the three of them were fine. 

Next on the list was the Son... he's away with work for a couple of days. I know it's not too major really, but I worry about all of the children when they aren't near to me.... I have got used to the fact that DD1 is away at Uni in Lincoln, and Son lives a short way away, and DD2 lives at home.. but I like them all near. 

Last but not least was DD2. I was making my way to Tonic HQ on Tuesday, when she was admitted into hospital with a bad kidney infection... of all the timings, hers is usually the best! She hadn't been well all weekend really, but Tuesday was the day they took her in. She is out today, armed with the large clear bag of antibiotics etc... so hopefully things will improve. 

My two days at Tonic HQ were lovely. We stayed at a lovely little Guest House called Ballas Farm, near Stormy Down, and it was sooo pretty. It was in a fantastic  middle-of-nowhere location, even though it was close to where I needed to be, and it was clean, comfortable and the hospitality was amazing. So, Tonic HQ beckoned....  Seeing so many of the lovely folks there, helping doing the packing of the dies from the Pick of the Day - did I pack yours I wonder? There were a few names I recognised.. lol. And tea lady. I make a perfect Tea Lady - in fact, I may just open myself a tea rooms when I retire.. lol. Lots of laughs, hugs, and catch ups were had, as well as looking at new items, pretty things, and playing with lots and lots of ........ well, you will have to wait and see!

Anyways... onto tonights post, and I thought I would share my little Twitter-Woo with you. She is such a little stunner. I was making the card that's at the bottom of the post and both myself and the hubby looked at it and thought 'that looks like an owl!'. So, my little Woo was born. Here she is in all her pretty glory.... 


I used the handbag Rococo die that came in with the Girls Night Out collection by Tonic to cut out the base card, and then stuck it straight onto a piece of kraft coloured cardstock which had been creased along the top. I trimmed around the outside edge of the card to create the base. I then repeat cut the die a few times to trim out the wings and the face. See the little ears? Well, they are the parts that are the residue from the eye section of the die. Can you see it?


All the cut out pieces were mounted onto kraft cardstock and then finished off by trimming round, colouring where I needed some colour and adding a white gel pen detail to bring some of it to life. The beak was cut from a scrap of orange cardstock and stuck underneath the face section.

Now, can you see where the idea of the owl came from with the little bag card below?? I used the Celtic dies to create a base for the bag to sit onto towards the top of the ard and the greeting was cut and placed at the bottom.


The wine glasses come as part of the word die, but I cut it again from a cream pearlescent cardstock and stuck it over the brown. I added some glitter to the top of the glass to add some 'wine' and a little bit of sparkle, then layered the wording onto green cardstock which matched the layers. 


Here's a little close up of the bag itself, and you can see I added a brad to act as the clasp of the bag and finished it off with a little drop shadow detail, a glossy brad, and little blob or two of the nuvo drops in Gold. 



I hope you have enjoyed tonights little projects for you. Two cards, completely different, but using the same die set in a different way.

I'm sure you've all started to recieve yours too, so pop by and share a link in the comments. It would be lovely to see what you've been upto making.. xx
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