Tuesday 25 February 2014

A Winter Walk

When I woke up this morning there was a bright blue sky so instead of grabbing the shovel, I grabbed my camera and spent some time in the wonderland behind our house. I also have a card for you today.







                                                    TO WISH YOU A HAPPY EASTER




The beautiful scrolled edge on this card is from Crafty Secrets CD3. It is actually a 12x12 sheet which I scaled down to fit this 5x6.5 card. This is one of the wonders of digital, you can have any size you want. The main image is a floral tag also from CD3. The sentiment tag is cut from a sheet of Graphics 45 paper. To finish it I added a seam binding bow and rose, lace, pearls, glitter, 2 pearl stick pins, and buttons.

Thanks so much for dropping by
Cheers,
Elizabeth
Cheers,

Winter Continues

The snow shovelling continued today with a new twist. My dear old dog Kodi doesn't like walking in the deep snow and stood there at the door not wanting to go out so I shovelled the side yard down to the grass so he could go outside. I am counting the days until we leave town and the snow. The one positive thing is, I have taken some amazing photos. Easter isn't until April 20 this year but it feels good to have cards ready ahead of when they are needed so today I have an Easter card to share.

                                                                EASTER GREETINGS


 
I started with white cardstock and layered the peach and blue striped background papers. The Rose Border from Crafty Secrets CD2 was the next thing added and then the Floral Tag from CD3. I have never seen such gorgeous tags as those on CD3. Finally the sentiment which is cut from a sheet of Graphics 45 paper. The final touches were a glittery leaf, ribbon, lace, rhinestone button, parchment butterfly (MS punch), 2 glass leaf beads, glitter, and silver pearls.

Thanks for visiting,
Cheers,
Elizabeth

Monday 24 February 2014

Winter Olympics

I won gold in snow shovelling yesterday. We have a number of older people in our townhomes and I noticed they were having trouble clearing the snow from their sidewalks so a few of us volunteered to help them out. When I was a child I remember boys, looking to make a buck or two, would knock on your door and offer to shovel your snow. How times have changed. Anyway it was tough slugging as the snow is wet and heavy. I did get to relax in the evening and made a card while I watched Downton Abbey.

Don't you just love digital images. The main image is actually collaged. This is intended to be a sheet of 12"x12" paper from Crafty Secrets CD2. I printed the bird cage and flowers in a smaller size but the bird was smaller than I would have liked and at the bottom of the page, so I then printed the same image only larger and cut out the bird and placed him on the branch. The sentiment and main image are mounted on patterned paper, then white cs, and finally mounted on peach cardstock. The branch is real and coated with glitter. The leaves are a Memory Box die cut from green paper, outlined in a darker green and glittered. Lastly a bow of gardening twine, a button, and 4 tiny pearls.

Thanks so much for dropping by,
Cheers, Elizabeth

Saturday 22 February 2014

Spring??????

Good morning dear followers. Was it only yesterday I bragged about how spring was well underway in Vancouver? Mother nature had something to say about that and this morning it is snowing. My plan was to bring you a new spring card each morning but it looks like I should have had some snow flake cards ready. Here is my spring card for today.


The main image and the floral tickets are both from Crafty Secrets CD3. The sentiment tag is cut from a sheet of Graphics 45 paper. When I tie these shaped or sculptured bows I tie the bow first and then soak it and wad it up in a tight little ball. I then style it into the shape I want and leave it to set and dry. Once you get rayon ribbon wet it loses it's body and takes on any shape you want it to have. It's finished off with a bit of lace, a few pearls, and buttons.

Thanks so much for dropping by.

Cheers, Elizabeth

Thursday 20 February 2014

Hello dear followers,
Lately I've been doing a lot more card making than blogging but I have a card to share with you today. I watch the weather forecasts so I know most North Americans are not feeling very "Springy" at the moment but here in Vancouver, spring is well on the way. Leaf buds are visible and the bulbs are up at least 4 - 5 inches. My husband and I started on a walking regime 3 weeks ago and we are amazed at how much warmer the climate is here by the water than when we lived up in the north shore mountains.
I made a set of these cards with coordinating colour combos and themes, through the next few days I'll post all of them. Here is the first:




The main image is a Crafty Secrets creative scrap from "Birds and Blossoms".  For the back ground paper I drew the blossom and leaf outline with a red pencil and water coloured the flowers with distress inks. The sentiment is from a Graphics 45 sheet mounted on turquoise and edged with glitter, same treatment on the main image. I bought this acetate moire looking Martha Stewart ribbon awhile ago. It is the greatest thing, you can cut it and it doesn't fray...ah, what wonders the oil patch can produce. I cut 2 very skinny strips for the wee bows and a wider one for the rolled ribbon rose. The butterfly is a MS punch. I finished up with a few buttons and a bit of lace and... voila! Thanks for looking in, by for now.

Cheers, Elizabeth

Tuesday 4 February 2014

Roses for Rose

It's cold for Vancouver today! This mornings dog walk wasn't the usual leisurely walk. The good thing was I got back in lots of time to make this card for the Teapot Tuesday Challenge over at Splitcoast Stampers. The recipient this week is "Rose" so we were to make a card using roses and a little girl. It seemed an obvious to use one of my favourite Crafty Secret stamps of a sweet little girl with a gigantic bouquet of flowers. I added 3 small hand rolled roses with a bit of glitter on the edges. The background is a free download at Crafty Secrets which I saved from last year. It is gorgeous and I wish I had printed  off a few extras!




                                                         This is a close up of the roses.



                                                             Thanks for dropping by.
     
                     
                                                                  Elizabeth


                                                         

Monday 3 February 2014

Valentine Linky Party

Here I am, with the help of my dear friend Darlene (Dar's Crafty Creations) with my brand new blog. I am so excited with the new Crafty Secrets digital set "Heart to Heart" I'm sure you'll agree it's wonderful.  After printing the 5 heart images I couldn't decide which one to use, they are all so beautiful, so I used them all and made a booklet Valentine for my husband.

This is the order in which I worked through this project:
1.  printed off the heart images and coloured them with copics
2.  placed the aqua punched paper trim around the heart (adhered to the back edge) Short Tutorial on how to do this following images
3.  painted the aqua trim with aqua H2O to add some shimmer.
4.  placed a tiny glue line around the heart (on the aqua trim) and glued the gold soutache in place
5.  added german gold ephemera, rhinestones, and pearls as embellishment to the images. Now as you all know copics bleed through even if you use copic paper so....
6.  cut 5 bright pink hearts the same size as the printed images and glued them on the back to cover both the punched paper and the copic bleedthrough.
7.  cut 5 velum hearts slightly smaller than the pink ones so the bright pink frames them.
8.  stamped in gold and embossed in gold Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How do I love thee..." on the vellum using Crafty Secrets "Artsy Alphabet" (you're in luck, there are still some available)
9.  placed a pink rhinestone at the top and bottom of velum heart to hide the glue dots.

Pages complete, I tied them together with pink silk ribbon slotted through the aqua trim. The bottom bow has 3 drops of crystal beads hanging from it. It fits in an A2 envelope but I will probably make a velum heart shaped one.

Front Cover
Gold butterfly and rhinestone scroll edge embellishments.

Pages 2 & 3
Verse

Pages 4 & 5
Paris page has gold ephemera birds, a fleur de lis brad, and a rhnestone scroll edge.
 

Pages 6 & 7
The angel image has a gold ephemera wing and the rhinestones spell love. The sweet lady has a gold ephemera crown, a gold shawl, and pearls in her hair.
 

Pages 8 & 9
Verse

Back Cover
The red heart is from some old jewelry, the blue bird is painted with H2O and I cut  around his forward wing and popped it out, the flowers are centered with tiny pearls, 2 gold birds finish it off.

                                                                           
Tutorial
How to bend a straight, flat punched strip around a circle.
For any sewers in the group this will be a no brainer. With fine sharp scissors cut the strip from what will be the inside edge to almost the outside edge. In the photo you can see the strip bent out to show you the cuts. Place 2 sided tape all around the edge and shape the trim around the curve. The gold soutache trim can be found at most fabric stores and bends around curves the same way as bias tape.

Please come join our February Linky Party where you can add a sample(s) you've created using any of our products and receive a $6.00 Coupon and 1 random.org winner will get a $50.00 gift card!

Thanks for visiting Paper Pass Times. 
Make sure you visit the rest of the Design Team.



Cheers, Elizabeth