Cool Christmas

Well I hope you've all been enjoying the festivities over the past week?.

It's been a busy time in the shop as you would expect at this time of year & we worked right up until 4 on Christmas Eve.

 So, its been really lovely to have a few days off & enjoy some time with family & friends before we started back today ready for our Winter Sale.

I'm sharing the Christmas card I made for my sister & her boyfriend. She's got a thing about Polar bears & when I saw this stamp from Woodware I just had to have it to make their card.

I cut a circle for the moon & a wavy strip for the snowy hills from cardboard & used these as masks around which I blended distress inks to form the sky background.

I left these in place & then placed the stars stencil from Imagination crafts over the top & spread diamond Sparkle medium also from Imagination crafts through the stencil.

Once dry, I stamped the Cool Christmas sentiment from the Woodware stamp set in the bottom right corner & added my Polar bears that had been coloured with a paintbrush & distress inks.

I created the border by stamping stars with perfect medium & then heat embossed with white detail embossing powder onto navy card.

To finish I added a bow made with ribbon & bakers twine, a pearl button & some crystal stickles glitter glue.

Hope you all have a great New Year & I wish you all a very happy 2015!.

See you again soon

Amy x 

Imagination Crafts tutorial sneaky peek!

Hi all, hope you had a good weekend?.

I'm finally feeling a bit more festive, just as well with the big day only a few days away now!.
Still lots of dashing about to do but I'm ticking things off my list daily.


Today I'm showing a sneaky peek of my first tutorial project for the Imagination Crafts blog.

Please pop on over to see what I made & the full tutorial.
It would be lovely if you could leave a moment too! :-)

Thanks for looking

Amy x 

Imagination Crafts Inspiration. Sparkle & Shine.

Welcome back, today it's time for me to share another inspiration project with you for Imagination Crafts.

Every month there is a new challenge over on the Imagination Crafts Challenge blog with an 'anything goes' theme.
Please pop on over & check out all the other Design team inspiration projects & it would be great if you joined in with the challenge too.

My card today was made using the Tile Petal stencil.
I secured the stencil to a piece of white card stock & used a Pigma Micron fine liner pen to draw around the stencil.
I then filled in the design with the same pens creating my own kind of Zentangle within the spaces.
I drew round just the flower petals on another piece of card, zentangled within them & cut them out.
I then covered the whole design & the separate petals with double sided clear adhesive sheet & applied cosmic shimmer glitter jewels all over. This created a super sparkly effect & makes the surface all twinkly!.

I shaped the separate petals & glued them over the top of the original petals to add a bit of dimension to my card.

I then finished with some black flat backed pearls in the centre of the flower plus some frosted white gems around the outside too.

That's it for today. Hope I've inspired you to join in the challenge.

Back again soon.

Amy x 

Dinkie Snowman pop up card

Welcome again blogger friends.

Thank you all for your birthday wishes, I really enjoyed my birthday although it all passed by so quickly & now I'm trying to concentrate on Christmas.

I was so excited to find that I had won the Visible Image November Challenge with my Butterfly pop up box card!
My first ever blog challenge win! :-) .

I've already spent my £20 prize on the Visible Image website & am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my goodies in the post.

In celebration, I thought I would share another pop up box card with you today.

This time it features stamps from Indigoblu.

Here I have used the Snowman dinkie, I wish you a merry Christmas dinkie & the A6 baubles flourish stamps.

Once constructed, the box card panels were decorated with the stamped images coloured with peacock feathers & faded jeans distress inks.

My snowman was stamped in black ink & coloured with promarkers. 

The snowflakes were fussy cut from the baubles flourish stamp & stuck onto clear acetate stalks to look as if they were falling snow.

I also added some snowflakes made with spellbinders & some touches of stickles glitter glue here & there for some added sparkle.
This all folds flat enough to fit inside an envelope ready to post or give to your recipient.

Thanks for looking, I'll be back again soon with some more Christmas makes.

Amy x 

Imagination Crafts Design Team Inspiration. Poppy fields

Hi all, I'm back today with my first design team post for Imagination Crafts.
Every month there is a new challenge over on the Imagination Crafts Challenge Blog with a great prize to spend in the  Imagination Crafts shop.
 So me & the rest of the design team have created some projects to hopefully inspire you to hop over & join in with the challenge.

For my inspirational project I've created a card using the Dragonfly & Poppies stencil & Inkadinks in Brights.

I attached the stencil to some white card & drew around the design with a pigma micron black fineliner pen to create an outline.
I then squeezed out small amounts of the red, yellow, orange & green inkadinks & watered them down to use as water colours to paint the dragonflies & poppies as above & used Distress Inks to blend in the background of the sky & field.
I then replaced the stencil & applied clear texture paste through it using a palette knife.
I removed the stencil & applied clear microbeads while the texture paste was still wet.

Once the texture paste has dried to clear, the colours of the inkadinks show through whilst the microbeads add texture & a lovely subtle sparkle.

I didn't really think that any more was needed to finish my card as there is quite a lot going on, so I just matted & layered my design onto red, black & then green card stock before fixing it to my white card blank.

 Make sure you pop over to the Imagination Crafts Challenge Blog to check out the fab creations by the rest of the design team & join in yourself.

Thanks again for stopping by.
 As always your comments are much appreciated & I'd also like to say a big Welcome to my newest followers, its great to have you here :-) .

Amy x 

Fabulous Forty!

Well, I must apologise for being abscent for a little while.

 But I think I have good reason, I've been celebrating my 40th birthday!. 

I've had a few days away here & there over the last week or so with family & friends & have been treated to some yummy meals out & gorgeous gifts. 

My best friend from school also celebrated her 40th birthday & my card today is the one that I made for her.

I cut the 40 with my cricut machine out of pale blue card. I then colour washed the numbers with some Lilac heaven & Blueberry ice Inkadinks that I received in the post along with lots of other gorgeous goodies from Imagination Crafts.

I've really enjoyed working with these inks & I'm looking forward to sharing some more projects that I've made using them as part of my new Design Team role for Imagination Crafts.

I also created my background with the two colours of inks & then spritzed the numbers & background with watered down mica powders to add shimmer. Unfortunately, the camera doesn't pick this up very well.

I then used Heartfelt Creations Sun Kissed Fleur Swirls stamps & stamped it randomly over the background with Dusty Concorde distress ink. Once dry,  I removed some of the colour from the centre of the flowers by brushing with water & then blotting with kitchen paper.

After trimming the background to fit my card blank, I stamped & cut more flowers from the offcuts, shaped them & added some turquoise micro beads to the centres.

My sentiment is also from Imagination Crafts.

I used all the same colours for the inside of the card plus a Phill Martin sentiment stamp to finish.

I hope you like the finished card.

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be back again soon.

Amy x 

Flutterby Butterfly

Hello & welcome back.

 Phew! What a busy week its turning out to be.

 This week we are hosting our annual Christmas Shopping Evenings at Out Of The Blue, with last night being the first of the 3 evenings. 

I was kept very busy running up & down the stairs, topping up items that had sold, chatting to our loyal customers & handing out festive drinks & nibbles.

Looking forward very much to the next 2 nights which are no doubt going to be just as busy, so I thought I'd grab these few spare moments to share my card with you.

It's a pop up box card that my half of our workshop group made a little while back using Visible Image  stamps.
Visible image design & make all their own clear stamps so if you're not familiar with them, please check out their fab products, some of which we are very pleased to stock in our shop.

I've used 4 stamps by Visible Image, Large Butterfly, Butterfly, Butterfly Sentiment & Tall Grass.

I used a template to create the base box card out of a sheet of A4 cream card. There are lots of instructions on how to construct pop up boxes of varying sizes available on YouTube etc.
 Once constructed & decorated the card folds flat enough to fit inside an envelope.
 I created my own background paper by making a piece of A4 card wet & then using Cosmic Shimmer Water Paint Garden Tones set & applying the various colours in patches.
Once dry the background has a beautiful shimmer to it.
I then stamped the 2 sizes of butterfly stamps randomly with distress inks that toned in with the shimmer paint.
The A4 background card was then cut into panels, mat onto lilac card & applied to the panels on my base box.

I stamped & embossed 3 large butterflies & 4 small butterflies & painted them with the same Cosmic Shimmer paints & cut them out.
I added distress glitter to the butterflies & made antennae from craft wire with tiny beads on the ends.
I stamped & embossed the Tall Grass onto lilac card several times & then cut around it & glued it inside the inner supports inside the box & onto the back panel.
The butterflies on acetate were then glued in & around the grass so they appear to be fluttering .

I stamped the Butterfly sentiment on to the offcuts of my background sheet & chopped it up, attaching it to the very front panel with 3D foam pads.

It was great fun making this card & although it was maybe a little time consuming to complete within the 2 hour workshop timescale, many of our class members came back to show more pop up cards they had then made at home based on this design.

These butterfly stamps are some of my favourite stamps to use & are great for lots of occasions.

I'd like to enter this card in the Visible Image November Challenge.

Thanks for visiting

See you soon

Amy x 

Exciting times!

Hello my friends, welcome back & welcome to my new followers too!.

Well, I have some exciting news to share with you today.

I recently saw that Imagination Crafts were looking for DT members & I decided to try my luck & apply.
Imagine my delight when I was offered one of the positions!!
So, as of the 1st December myself & the other design team members will be showcasing products from Imagination Crafts & bringing you some inspiring projects.
 I do hope you'll keep stopping by to see what we come up with.

So today I thought it appropriate to show you a card I have made using Imagination Crafts products.

I stamped the Decoupage Stamp Sets - Owls Border twice & coloured with promarkers.
I cut away the background in the middle of the design ready for my own created background to show through.
I then cut out the little owl & decoupaged it onto the main coloured image with 3d foam.
I die cut a silver scalloped frame for my owl image using a spellbinder.
Next I created my background by scraping diamond Sparkle Medium through the Random Stars background stencil.
Once dry I then added my owl image with 3d foam to give depth.

Finally, I matted & layered this onto vintage silver card to match the frame around my owls & then again onto navy card edged with blue dimensional paint dots.

Before I go I thought I would share some pics of the cake & other bits & bobs I made for my daughter's birthday this week.

She turned 5 & like most 5 year olds she is completely obsessed with all things to do with the Disney film Frozen.

So that was the theme of the party which we hosted for 20 children.

 Unfortunately, Daisy got chicken pox a couple of days before her birthday but after a trip to the doctor we were given the OK to go ahead with the party.

I'm pleased to report that the chicken pox seem to be on their way out,  just in time for her to go back to school!.

Thanks for stopping by, see you again soon.

Amy x 

Funky Christmas

Hi everyone!. I'd just like to say thank you for all the lovely comments you've all been leaving me recently, its much appreciated & I'm still working my way around catching up with what you've all been up to as well.

Also, a big hello & welcome to my new followers!

Thank you for following me & taking the time to visit.

Now, onto today's card.

It's one I made a while ago when I was trying to get into the swing of making Christmas cards.

It's 8 x 8 on a scalloped card blank & features 2 stamps from Indigoblu. 

Funky Circles Tree & Merry Christmas dinky.

As you can see, I've gone for the traditional red, green & gold Christmas colours.

I stamped the tree in Evergreen Bough distress ink onto white card & heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

I then cut around the tree & inked it with Festive Berries distress ink.

I stamped just the star at the top of the tree with flitter glue, applied gold gilding flake, cut it out & stuck it over the original star with 3d foam.

Next I stamped the Merry Christmas dinky with flitter glue onto red card & applied gold gilding flakes.

I then mat & layered this onto green card, the edges of which I'd lightly touched with glue & gilded.

I gilded the edge of some red card & attached the tree to the left with 3d foam & the sentiment to the right.

I stamped the funky tree around the edges of a piece of white card with flitter glue & once gilded inked with the red distress ink as before.
This was then mat & layered onto red & then green card & the whole lot was mounted onto the card blank.

The final touches are a gold organza ribbon bow & red, green & gold gems in the circles on the tree.

Right, I'm off to bed. A busy day tomorrow. Daisy has her first Harvest Festival in the morning & then its busy, busy pricing up several deliveries that arrived in the shop today.
Christmas is definitely on it's way!

Amy x 

Season of Joy

Phew, what a busy week!. 2 workshops for Out Of The Blue & non stop Christmas deliveries & sorting to do in the shop. 

The weather seems to be changing & customers are buying with Christmas gifts & crafting in mind.

This first card is the project my half of our group made on Thursday at our Out Of The Blue card making workshop.

 It was quite a busy 2 hours with lots of heat embossing & stencilling with texture paste.

The card was made with the Season Of Joy Dreamweaver stencil & silver embossing paste.

After applying the paste onto purple card the paste was heated with a heat tool until it bubbled & added texture.

Here is a closer view of the texture achieved by this technique.

The background was made by embossing white card with an embossalicious embossing folder through my grand calibur.

Before running it through, I applied perfect medium to the debossed side of the folder. The clear ink was then transferred to my piece of card as it went through & the pattern was embossed into it at the same time.

Once removed from the folder, I applied silver embossing powder all over the piece of card & heat embossed it.

I then inked the embossed stars with dusty concord distress ink.

Areas of the scenery were enhanced with the same ink to create shadowing & depth &  I also applied treasure gold silver.

Final touches were silver & lilac ribbon tied with a double bow & some die cut & embossed Snowflakes edged with silver.

I also made the same card to show it in another colour way.

Finally, here's the card we made at the workshop on Tuesday. An additional workshop to our normal schedule.

We were asked to do this workshop as part of the Discover South Gloucestershire festival 2014.

This card was designed by Carole, my co workshop teacher & everyone really enjoyed making it, including me.

Its made using the Dasher & Tree stamps by Sam Poole from Creative Expressions. 

 If you don't already follow Carole's blog please pop over & check it out at 

Carole's Crafty Creations

She makes some beautiful cards & other great crafty projects.

Right, that's it from me for tonight. Its way past my bed time & I have another busy day tomorrow in the shop.

Thanks for joining me & please pop back again soon.

Amy x 

Festive Tree

Well, I can't believe we are on the verge of October already & that its been so long since my last blog post!.

I must apologise for my absence & lack of commenting on your projects but its been quite a busy time.

Covering staff holidays, our own holiday, Hubby's 40th & our little Daisy starting school has meant not a lot of time for blogging I'm afraid,  plus we are now on the build up to Christmas in the shop with lots of ordering & deliveries to sort.

Anyway, I have managed to fit in a bit of crafting time recently, mainly playing around with ideas for our Out Of The Blue workshops. So hopefully I can get back into the swing of things & post a bit more regularly.

My card today was the result of playing around with some  Dreamweaver stencils ready for our October workshops.

We did one of our 1st Christmas workshops a couple of years ago using this Dreamweaver  tree stencil with embossing paste & mica powders so I thought I'd use it in a different way for this card.

I started by creating my background with alcohol inks on glossy white card stock. The technique I used was one I saw on  a youtube tutorial, there are quite a few videos on there showing this technique. 

I randomly dripped 2 different colours of alcohol inks ( in this case red & green ) all over a sheet of acetate. I then dripped blending solution randomly over the top to dilute the colours & allow them to spread out a bit more.

Next I put my glossy card face down on top of the colours & placed another sheet of acetate over the top to create a sandwich. I then pressed down & rubbed my hand over the acetate to spread the inks around & allow the glossy card to pick up the colours.

This creates a completely random, quick drying effect 

I cut down my background & used a snowflake background stencil, also from Dreamweaver & inked through it with festive berries & evergreen bough distress inks.

I off centred the tree to the right & spread black glossy embossing paste through it. I then left this to dry.

I stamped the Phill Martin Christmas sentiment on the offcut of my background, cut it out & backed it onto red card.

I die cut & layered my snowflake in red & green ( Spellbinder Snowfkake Wonder ) & added a black pearl to the centre.

I tied some red ribbon & added it to the left of the tree & attached the sentiment & snowflake near the top. 

To finish, I mat & layered onto red & green card & added red, green & gold stickles to the baubles & star at the top of the tree.

Well, thank you for taking a look, I hope you'll pop by again soon. 

I'm going to make a big effort over the next few days to stop by & catch up with what you've all been up to.

See you soon

Amy x 

Blue borders

Hi there bloggers, hope you're all enjoying this glorious sunshiny weather!?. I'm hoping it continues into next week as I've got the week off, Yey! 

My card today was made when I was playing around with ideas for last week's workshop at Out Of The Blue.

 We are concentrating on the products Julia Watts used at our demo day at the beginning of June so it encorporates a That Special Touch mask, Cosmic Shimmer water colour paints, a Creative Expressions Frame Stamp & Cosmic Shimmer Sparkle Texture Paste - my favourite product to play with at the moment!.

I started by using the Sea Green Sparkle Texture Paste through the Filigree mask & setting it aside to dry for a good few hours. 

I tried heating with a heat tool but it didn't really work very well. So, whilst I had a few pastes & different masks at hand I set up a bit of a production line & tried out a few colours & designs, so be prepared for a few posts featuring this technique!.

Next I stamped with faded jeans & heat embossed the sentiment & Garden Frame inner & outer frames & die cut them with Spellbinders Lacey Squares which fits this stamp perfectly.

I then painted the design with Golden Aqua, Golden Pear & Golden Malachite water colour paints from the Garden Tones set.

I then layered onto pearlescent lime green card & pale blue card & mounted into the centre of my sparkle paste background.

Around the outer edge of my card I added dots of pearlescent PVA & a double pale blue grosgrain ribbon bow in the bottom right corner finished with a turquoise resin rose in the centre.

That's it for today, I'm off to get ready for work.

 Just had a new delivery from Creative Expressions so I'm going to be drooling over the new Sue Wilson dies & new colours of Sparle paste that just arrived!.

Hope your day is a good one & thanks for all your lovely comments.

Amy x 

July workshop project

Hi there bloggers! & a big welcome to my 3 new followers!

Its so nice to have you here & thanks for choosing to follow my Crafty Little Ideas.
You can also follow via Bloglovin & I'm just claiming my blog
 <a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/8214413/?claim=sh6d5ub34gq">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

I'd also like to say a big thank you to you all for leaving me such lovely comments on my last post, all of which are very much appreciated. Thanks for taking the time.

Today I am sharing the project my half of our crafty group will be making at our first July workshop tonight.

After our demo day with Julia Watts last month lots of people said how much they had enjoyed the day but that they would really have loved to get hands on & have a go at some of the techniques she had shown us & use some of the products she was demonstrating.

So we decided to base our July workshops around the products  & techniques from that day.

I created my background by dabbing green aqua Cosmic Shimmer shimmer paint through one of the decorative corners from the Decorative Elements That Special Touch mask in the four corners of a piece of coconut white card.
Once dry, I then spritzed the background with mango blush & Egyptian blue shimmer mists & dried with my heat tool.
I then used the A4 heart lattice embossing folder to emboss the piece of card & blended some peacock feathers distress ink lightly over the top to make the embossing a bit more prominent.
This was then layered onto a piece of white card that I painted the edge of with gold shimmer paint & then onto aqua card onto my card blank.

I stamped the inner & outer frames from the Creative Expressions Garden Frame stamp & the sentiment in the centre with black ink & heat embossed with clear embossing powder. 

I then painted the flowers etc with green aqua & gold shimmer paints.

I die cut some frames with Lacy Squares Spellbinders from white card & painted the scalloped edges with the gold shimmer paint & stuck my floral designs on top layering with more aqua card & 3d foam for dimension.

I added a double bow in orange organza & teal silky crush to the bottom right of the card with a flat backed pearl embellishment from Hobby House that I had also painted with the shimmer paints to match.

A few touches of stickles glitter glue & some gold pearl pva glue to the flowers added the final touches to my card.

Hope you like it & that you'll pop back soon.

Amy x