Frogs and roses

Spring is in the air. Outside our bedroom window at night can be heard the soft croak, croak, croak of some busy little frogs

 They are a bit shy, but Naomi my oldest daughter managed to catch a few of them on camera earlier this morning.

 As a result of their activity, we now have quite a bit of frog spawn in the pond.

What usually happens now is we get a cold spell and it all freezes!

On a completely different topic, just look at these beautiful roses I was sent as a thankyou for doing some wedding invitations for a friend.

 They are absolutely gorgeous. Just look at that amazing spiral !

 (Captured on camera by Naomi.)

a little hello card

 

Hello! I wanted to show you this little card which has one of my polymer clay buttons made using a flower paper punch.

The large flower on the card is a combination of punches. The multi detail flower punch to which I have added a heart to the back of each petal , and on top the same flower punch as used on the button.

The little Hello detail is also made from polymer clay stamped with some alphabet rubber stamps.

Paper punches and polymer clay

Ever since I saw this wonderful technique using papercuts to emboss polymer clay, I knew I wanted to try this with my Tonic Studios paper punches.
I used a textured card and punched a variety of shapes to try out. The dark patches on the card are because this is after they have been used with the clay.

I really enjoyed the technique and made a few bits and pieces.

Cute little earrings with this butterfly paper punch.

While the card was still in place I used it like a stencil and rubbed on pearlex powders and glitter to get different effects.

These earrings are made with the branch part of the birdy punch.

I used a different texture of card for this one. Also with the birdy punch.

More birdy punch. This time with white pearlex powder on black clay. It makes the raised areas look silver leafed.

I used my flower punch for this one and added detail with my craft pick.

This one has glitter on the flower area and pearlex powders around it.

This time I added an organic looking centre to the flower by rolling tiny egg shapes and pressing them onto the clay with my craft pick.

I made a ring to match it. This one has circles on top of the egg shapes pressed with an empty ballpoint pen. It's supposed to look like flowers and leaves.

So If you like to play with polymer clay and you have some paper punches, then give this a try. It's great fun. I'll show you some of the buttons and card embellishments I've been making very soon.

Snow lady

Hi there. Today I am having a polymer clay play day. I'll show you what I have been making soon. But in the meantime, I thought I'd share a picture of my little girl next to the snowlady she built on Sunday with only a little help from her older sister.

By Monday morning she was half melted and now I really should go pick up that carrot from the lawn!

Wedding Invitations

I still am not feeling 100% after my bout of flu, but at least my brain feels like it is accessible again, so I finally got around to finishing some wedding invitations for a friend. I made 120 of them!

To make the card I started with A4 sized pearly card and cut them into two. Then using my Super Trimmer with the scoring blade, I scored them all so that they are gatefold cards. I then used a bone folder to press all the creases nice and flat.

Here's a handy hint...if you have a lot of cards to score at the same size, then use a pencil to mark a guideline on your trimmer. It wipes off easily afterwards and saves a lot of time.

I found that the best glue for sticking on the hearts was my Funky Gluestick.

And the speediest method of sticking in the inserts was the Funky Tape Runner.

I found some nice quality envelopes on Ebay. I punched them to match the cards.

And of course, being the mad box making lady that I am, I had to make boxes to put them in too. So I made six boxes that hold 20 cards each.

Now I just have to hope that the Royal Mail gets the package to my friend safely.

The punches used were...
Crossing Heart Medium paper punch
Multi Detail Craft Punch - Heart
Simplicity Geared Punch - Rings

Blog Tonic Giveaway

Hi there,
just dropping by to let you know that this month Blog Tonic is giving away a complete set of it's Petal Pair Petites Paper punches. Head on over and check it out. 

a a a a a tishooo!

Blue toile reversible tissue box cover from Head2Toe on Etsy

There has been a lot of coughing and spluttering and tissue using going on this last week and due to this I have not managed to accomplish very much. I wasted about 3 days just stuck in bed not being able to do anything. I have a rather long TO DO list, so am feeling a bit frustrated, but I think today I am beginning to feel human again. Not sure if I was an alien yesterday but anyhoo, I'm now going to slowly (and I mean s l o w l y ) start working my way through my list. 

If I can just pry myself away from my hot water bottle for a wee while...

Knitted hot water bottle cover from MelinMaildy on Etsy 

A recycling challenge...

Does the cost of fancy papers put you off cardmaking? Never fear. If you have a few paper punches in your arsenal, it is possible to produce cards relatively cheaply. Here I have issued myself a challenge. Decorate a card using packaging material.

I received this sweet little body wash set for my birthday in January. I have started using it, but instead of putting the card packaging in my recycle bin, I am going to use it to decorate a greetings card.
I'm not going to allow myself anything else for embellishing the card.

A few dabs of  Craft Tacky Glue later...

OK, so it won't win any design awards, but I knocked this up pretty quick. I even had enough of the packaging left over for another card.

It was relatively thin card, but it did punch really easily with the Tonic Studios Simplicity Geared punches. Now I have a couple of cheap and cheerful cards to add to the collection !

Do you think I should send the thankyou card to the person who gave me the shower gel to see if they notice what it was made from?

Tonic Studio Tools used...
Simplicity geared punch classics
Petal pairs box set 2 and Petal Pairs petite 1
Craft Tacky Glue
Shape mates

Over at Blog Tonic I have the same post but have also included a little challenge to YOU to make a recycled packaging card. Come on over and join us.