Luck of the Irish :)

Hello! Happy New Year!!!! Two months later ;) I haven't been blogging much lately, enjoying too many great television series and crocheting! You can check out some of my unblogged crafts on my Instagram account. In the future there may be some calligraphy coming up, I got some beautiful Calligraphy pens at Christmas and have been doing a bit of doodling.

More to follow!!

Today, I am showing you a card I made for my brother, and for the Craft for the Craic's March theme - "Luck of the Irish". In the middle of March, we celebrate our Patron Saint's Day, St. Patrick or Paddy's Day (*NOT* Patty's Day ;)  ) and our theme is "Luck of the Irish". You can interpret the theme, as usual, anyway you like!

My brother recently changed career paths, so I made him a card to wish him luck on his new journey!

The base was a kraft A5 card, and I used some papers from My Minds Eye 6x6 paper pad - "Follow Your Heart". I absolutely LOVE this paper pack. Love the different colours and how they all combine so well together. (it does help I'm particularly partial to teal and tan lately ;) ) I am forever on the look out for more of this paper, only problem is I noticed a spelling mistake on one of the quotes. I contacted the manufacturer and they said they were not reprinting the paper pad. :(  I will need to look out for old stock and ignore my OCD urge to correct the mistake!

I also used some embossed vellum paper, a kraft tag, some blue raffia, some cork and chipboard embellishments. 

 I stamped a few different stamps in brown ink, to the background layer.

 

I did some doodling around the edge of the tag in a gold pen and added some raffia to the twine to lift the colour.

Thank you for stopping by today, and hope your Friday goes well :) If you are crafting and it matches the theme, why not enter our challenge over at Craft for the Craic. 

I am entering this card in the Simon says Stamp challenge - Touchy Feely (the embossed vellum and all the chipboard embellishments)

Lá Fhéile Pádraig duit! (Happy St. Patrick's Day)

Happy Crafting,

Mise le meas,

Eithne

Best Wishes Card

Hello and hope your Friday is going well. Over at Craft for the Craic this month, the challenge is "Wings". 

Today I am showing a card I made with a combination of stamps, dies, papers, embellishments and an embossing folder!

I die cut a heart out of some Kraft card, and then embossed the rest of the sheet of card. This was layered onto some beautiful My Minds Eye "Oliver" glittery paper.

I used the house, windows and doors from the Simon Says Stamp "Where the Heart is" collection. I used some Promarkers to colour them in to add some colour that would co-ordinate with the rest of the card. (I only recently bought some Promarkers, so this is my first project to colour with them yet...!!)

I used some blue and cream embellishments - a butterfly bead (Wings), flat backed pearls, buttons, beads to add some detail on the embossed card.

I then die cut a frame from some more My Minds Eye "Oliver" paper, and also cut the banner. I used a stamp set I got free with a magazine for the sentiment and used a wooden veneer heart for the right hand side.

This card is for some friends who recently moved house. If you are crafting and it matches the theme for Craft for the Craic, why not give the challenge a go?!
I am going to enter the card into the following challenges -
Simon Says Stamp - Monday Challenge SSS Brand Product (The house stamp is from the "Where the Heart is" set)
Wags 'n' Whiskers - Lots of Layers
Creative Card Crew - Embossing
Whimsy Images - Colour an Image

Thanks for Stopping by,
Hope you have a wonderful weekend,
Eithne :)

Birthday wishes to Anita :)

Happy Birthday Anita! Today's post is part of a surprise blog hop for Anita. It is her birthday today, and as a surprise all her design teamies made a birthday card. This is the card I made:

I was spoiled this Christmas with beautiful gifts, a lot of them crafty stuff :) How blessed I am! With a few new supplies, I decided to try and incorporate them. I got this beautiful washi tape, and HAD to use it. The colour combo is not one I would usually use, so I decided to work with it.


I embossed some grey paper with one of my favourite embossing folders - Cuttlebug honeycomb folder. With some pink art paper I punched the edge with a Martha Stewart punch ( I used this same punch for the border on the inside sheet)

Using my Sizzix Framelits 'Label, Ornate no. 2' I die cut with the largest and 3rd largest die. I cut the smaller shape for an opening, and folded it back on itself. I purposely used double sided paper to show the reverse side. (I normally can't stand to use double sided paper as I feel it's such a waste to hide one side when it's stuck down!)

I stamped the sentiment onto some white board, and die cut it out. I got some pink bakers twine and threaded through the tag die cut, and also looped a charm through it.

For the bottom right hand corner, I added three buttons and a flat back pearl, in colours to complement the card.

Please check out all the other beautiful cards on the surprise blog hop, from my design teamies!

Lucy

Lisbeth

Net

Debs

Rebecca

Teresa

Lynne

Nicola

Sian

Darcy

Ashley

Fiona

Jacqui

Me! ====> You are here!

Pam

Sylvia

Sara

So Anita, wishing you a wonderful day, and hope today is a great day, filled with laughter, fun, happiness and LOTS of cake. ;)

Eithne

x

Those who wander...

Hello everyone!

Hope you are enjoying the Spring weather :D I am thoroughly enjoying the bright, long days. Long may they last!!

This is the card I made for my brother and his girlfriend, they emigrated to Canada during the week.

I used the "My Mind's Eye" 6x6 paper pack, "Follow your Heart". This was the only printed paper I had, that had any relevance to the theme of card needed. (Thankfully I haven't had to make many cards for people leaving, as I would be a constant emotional mess!!)

I cut a strip of teal board to the width of the A5 card front (210mm wide) and then cut a piece of tan coloured board to fit the printed piece of paper. I embossed this with my most loved embossing folder, the Honeycomb! I used a few strips of printed paper for a bit of height.

I had some chipboard honeycomb (that I would dearly love to know where I buy more from!!) that I stuck down on top of some canvas that was folded accordion style and died with an ink pad. I then used the frayed parts of the canvas as a tie for the charm.

I used a mask and ink pad to colour up the edges of the card. With an ink blending tool, I inked up a canvas flower to tone in with the card, and stuck a button on top. 

I used some beautiful polka dotted washi tape also, cutting the bottom to tie in with the "flags" on the printed paper.

I then used the ink blending tool to ink up the edges of the card also.

I am entering my card in the following challenges:

Charisma Cardz Challenges - Challenge #16 - Polkadots

DRS Designs - Challenge 67 Pastels

Happy Campers - Challenge No. 15

My Heart Pieces - Embossing

Southern Girls Challenge - Button Up or Show some Flair

Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are having a wonderful Spring day also!

Eithne

21st Album inserts

Hello :D Hope you are having a great day. Today we had a really wild, windy, wet day, I'm really looking forward to Spring!

As mentioned in the previous post, here are some more photos of the album I made at Christmas.

The Cover

The first page, a spot for a photo from birth! I used my Big Shot to cut out the numbers and also to emboss the background strip.

The second page I used as a title page for the 5 photo insert pages to follow, one pocket for each birthday over the past 20 years. I did a combination of stamping, layering and stickers to decorate.

The page that follows is for a photo from the 21st party. Again, I used a corner punch to create a pocket for putting photos in. I also embossed a strip and again used the Big Shot for cutting out the numbers for the year.

I created a pocket sheet so an invitation keepsake could be kept safe.

Some photos of the pages that follow - 

I created another pocket sheet, so that anymore keepsakes could be saved. I did a combo of dry embossing and heat embossing for decorating. On the pocket flap, I used a ribbon  punch and threaded a ribbon through.

For the last decorated page, I again used it as a title page for the couple of photo insert sheets at the end. I used layering, embossing, embellishments and outline stickers.

I then used a Bind-it-All to bind it and I stuck it into the Cover All. This was my first scrap album to create using a Cover All, and I learned a few lessons along the way, the one that sticks out the most, I'm going to share. I used very thick board for the single sheets (approx. 300gm) and a lighter board (220gm) for the pockets. This allowed for a very sturdy sheet, but a little bit more difficulty when punching on the Bind-it-All. I added thick stickers too close to the bound edge, so when punching the sheet I had to remove them. This is something I will remember in future, as I had to replace a few stickers as I tore them taking them off.

Anyway, it is late here in Ireland, and I fear my little ones may have another night of wake-ups, so I'm going to bid you adieu! Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed the rest of the album. You can also look at a youtube video here.

Have a great day,

Eithne

21st Album - 8 x 8 bamboo album

Hello. Thank you for stopping by :) Today I am showing you the cover of an album I made. This is the second album I have ever made, so everything is still new to me!! It was for a friend for her 21st. I used an 8 x 8 black Bamboo Cover-it-all.

I die cut a large pink scalloped oval. Using a beautiful Japanese influenced rubber stamp, I stamped it in black. I had to keep repeating the image as the stamp was not large enough for the oval. I also had to finish off some of the design by hand, as I didn't always stamp it evenly! Oops!

To tie in with the stamped flower image, I used an outline sticker of the same image for the next layer. This was placed onto the purple card. It is a beautiful, beautiful image of the flowers, but a total pain to take out all the negative part of the stickers! It ended up being very delicate, and despite taking nearly 40 minutes of picking out the negative of the stickers, I think it is truly worth it!

I cut a strip of lime green card and embossed it with the smaller honeycomb folder from Cuttlebug. Arranging it at a diagonal, I always feel gives it a bit of character! I stuck some flower embellishments on, and used some brads for the metal flowers.

I used a Tim Holtz die, styled labels to cut out the centre white piece, and embossed it with the honeycomb embossing folder from Cuttlebug. I then punched two holes on each side, laced some ribbon through, and inked the edges. I stamped on "st" in silver, and wrote "my". I die cut the numbers 21 from glittery purple foam and stuck them on. I used foam pads for the whole label, to give it a bit of depth.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this second album. This is only the cover, but hopefully in the next few days I will get showing the rest of the album.

I hope to enter this into the following challenges

Inky Chicks - anything goes

Lady Anne's Challenges - inspired by favourite stamp

Stamp n Doodle Challenge - Anything Goes

Crafts and me challenges - New

Whimsy inspires - Fancy Edges

Thanks for looking, and please leave a comment. I would love to hear from you! Have a great day.

Eithne