Crafting @ Eighty

Good afternoon everyone. I see it has been a month since I posted anything. I am getting slower & slower with my work, but when I have made something I will continue to show it here.  Because I am currently not involved in any challenges I am not being read by other people.  But I don't mind - when I do get around to blogging, it is helping to keep my mind alert. Anyhow, those recent cards; Several small Clean & Simple cards Very simple white on white except for a small amount of silver to lift the design. There is also some lines scored into the front of the card to take the plainness off - they dont always show up well in a photograph. The die is unknown (probably from Aliexpress) Although a new stamp I just cannot remember what make it is. I just loved its simplicity. Finally these 2 cuties. The images are from Pngwing (I was introduced to them by a lady who shows her cards on Clean & Simple Facebook Group.) I have also had several family cards to make for October, &

  Thank you Ma'am for all year year of service. You will be sadly missed

 Hello again.  Today I have a couple of cards in the "Clean & Simple" style that I made this week, to share with you. I recently joined in the Face Book group "Clean & Simple Cards", so these were for showing on there.  Recently I had had one of my cards declined as falling outside the rules. It was only the second card that I had tried. So I decided to stand back & watch what was being produced by others to help me choose the right style.  It is of course a very much "in the eye of the beholder" style. So, here are 2 cards I made this week. I have uploaded one of them to the group which is now pending, waiting for administrators approval.  If this one is OK I will then post the second one. I stamped the snowflake in Versamark Ink & heat embossed it with silver embossing powder. Then lightly coloured some of the little squares on the arms of the snowflake, in pale blue & pale lilac pencil. The "Merry Christmas" is a peel-off i

Hello everyone - isn't it hard to believe we are now into September?  My! this year is rushing by. Today I have a photo of a card I made last week for a challenge at one of my clubs.  The theme was the "Passing of Summer".  Quite a challenge! To help me when I was thinking of the design, we had a beautiful late summer sunset one evening - so that gave me the colours.  Then I turned to Google, as you do, & searched for images & quotes to do with the ending of summer.  The images gave me an idea of the stamps to use, but I also found a really lovely quote.  So, here is the card; I am not the best at colouring & creating things like sky, but I am quite pleased with this. I used Distress Inks diluted with water & then brushed gently across the card. The trees, which are one stamp,  were basically for an autumn image so had bare branches. The set that they came from also had a cluster of leaves stamp, so I used that in 2 shades of green across the branches.  Th

Good afternoon everyone.  I hope you have something special arranged for the forthcoming Bank Holiday Weekend. Let's hope the weather is going to be kind to us. A few weeks ago I treated my lovely husband to an afternoon tea trip in a vintage train on the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway.  There were two types of ticket - one in the ordinary carriage & one in the refurbished "first class" carriage.  Unfortunately when I booked all the first class spaces were gone.  But never the less it was still really good where we were. It was also a very nice afternoon tea with sandwiches & cake & tea or coffee. As always on our days out & holidays, I took quite a few photos & just had to make a little album.  This one is a gate-fold album & the pages are made from C6 envelopes with two 5 x 7 cards creating the left & right sections to hold the pages. Here are just a few of the pages to show you; The cover. It is held closed by a magnet under the logo

Hello everyone. The last couple of weeks I have slowly been making myself another photo album.  It took this long due to the hot weather which cut down the length of time I could sit in the craft room. The album style is from a video I watched by Vanessa Peter of "Scrappin It Up". She named this album Garden Party - not sure what I will call mine, but at the moment due to its vintage look I may possibly use for it for old family photos.  This will go along side my research into my family history. Here are some photos of sections of the album. The front cover. The base of the album is 12x12 Kraft card. This is the inside left page. It has 2 flaps one which opens to the left & one which opens to the right. Giving me 5 pages in total. This is the right hand page It is also the basis for a large pocket.  It has a flap with a pocket on the front which opens to the right & gives me 2 pages plus the pocket. This is the reverse side of the large pocket. The tab at top left is

 Hello everyone.  Today I have the card I made for our grandsons 5th birthday to show you, which he celebrated a couple of weeks ago. Having asked about his interests at this time I had to sit & check out some of the children's programmes on BBC.  The most difficult thing is being able to interpret the findings onto a card. One of his favourite channels has several programmes in which they each use different characters,  So I selected the one called "Numbers" Here is the card; Character 5 was the obvious choice for the front of the card. This is the double spread insert. I selected the various characters I wanted from Google, & put them through some scrapbooking software I have. The left-hand page just has number 5 again - but without the 5 & a message to him.  Then the right-hand page has a waterfall topper with the characters 1 to 5 on individual pages. I created the background paper by taking each image without their numbers onto a page in the software pack

 .....  they are part of life but we would really rather not have to make one. Yes, sympathy cards.  Sadly our elderly neighbour passed on Monday.  He had been quite poorly & in a nursing home. As I chose a quite colourful butterfly for the front I decided not to put any sentiment there, Instead I wrote a really nice verse on the inside, that I had found on Google. My next post I will show the birthday card I made for our grandson who was 5 a couple of weeks ago.

Good afternoon everyone. Today I have another CAS card that I have made for the Clean & Simple Facebook page. I am quite enjoying making these CAS cards, which is quite testing as it is even more important to know when to stop.  The stamp image is from "Clearly Besotted", & has a matching die.  It is part of a set of 5 different floral arrangements in vases. I have had them for some considerable time & this is the first time I have used them, due to normally making busier cards. I really must work out a way to ensure my sentiments are straight. I find that with clear stamps they tend to cling to my finger when trying to straighten them. I will persevere! Thank you for visiting my little blog.

 Good afternoon everyone. Today I have a clean & simple card design to show you.  I found a new technique, well unknown to me anyway, recently - to use dies as stencils. You use the actual die - not a paper or card die-cut of it. This was the result. I really liked the look & will be using it again. More importantly it has given my mojo a lift. Thank you for visiting.

 Good afternoon everyone. I do hope you are coping well in this very hot spell. Its very nice to see the sun but we have our curtains closed in the hope of it being a little cooler in here, & also a fan running. When I posted a couple of days ago I was surprised to see I hadn't shown any of my work for a month! Well, for some reason it would appear I just forgot to do it, as I had made several cards. Here are 2 of them, both a very similar design but different images. They were inspired by some  cards I have seen somewhere - probably Facebook or Pinterest. Both cards use Honey Doo stamps & some stencils (which I own up to having quite a lot of) which I haven't used for a while. This one I used the most of the stencil design using Distress Inks in pale greens. Then I stamped & coloured the flowers & foliage, with some nice colouring pens, cut them out & then arranged around the stencil image. This one, again I used Distress Ink for the stencil, & the colo

Good heavens! Over a month since I last posted. I have slowed down quite a bit but didn't think it was that much. I think I have just forgotten to sit here & let you know what I have been up to. I decided to test myself & make a clean & simple card for a change. I don't make particularly busy ones, but wanted to try cutting back a little more. The bluey-green square is a piece left over from some encaustic art work I did. I layered it onto a white square added the flower & foliage, & a stamped greeting. Before attaching the topper to the base card I scored some vertical lines in the centre to add some texture.  Very pleased with the outcome. Already there are bits & bobs from other projects on my desk to create some more cards. It's a good way to use up left overs. I will now look at projects I have made recently & see what I haven't yet shown on my blog. Thank you for visiting, please come again.

Hello everyone. Are you all prepared for any street parties that may be happening in your area?  Its hard to believe that 70 years have gone by since the coronation, & goodness me hasn't our Queen worked hard during those years. Today I have an 80th birthday card to show you. I made it for my friend for whom I make the fund raising cards. It is one of many 80th birthdays during 2021/22. Normally cards for men give me quite a problem on design, but this friend is a great jazz enthusiast so I have a theme to research. For this card I turned to the internet & jazz theme images.  Here is what I was able to make; I just printed the group as was, giving a nice silhouette design, then layered it onto a black card that had been dry embossed & added the "80" & "Happy Birthday". All mounted on a white card, Here is the inside. I found a royalty free image of jazz music sheet for "Happy Birthday To You".  I put this through my Serif Craft Artist p

 Hello everyone I hope you are all well.  I cannot believe that we are fast approaching the end of May, this year is going so fast! I have been busy making cards for my scouting friend to help raise funds for his group.  So, this last couple of days I have used a card making kit that came with a magazine. The kit is The Secret Garden by Christine Griffiths of Card Making Magic. I still have some pieces left but have made 17 cards so far; The kit was very pretty & also very easy to use. It included the background papers which were patterned one side & plain the other. As some of the embellishments were quite busy I had to make the decision to use the plainer side in some cases. I hope you found them interesting to look at & enjoyed your visit.  Have a lovely weekend.

Good afternoon everyone, how is your weekend? Once again it has been a little while since I last posted here.  So today should make up for it as I have several cards to show you. It fell to me last week to provide a challenge for one of my clubs.  I chose the subject "music".  As it had been my idea I felt I should create several different ideas. Here they are -  This one is Distress Ink through a stencil, using the whole design. The music image was a stamp, I have had it for quite a while & cannot remember the maker. The flourish was also a stamp but the words were another stencil which I inked in 2 parts. The background is from a part sheet of music that I tore into smaller pieces,  then distressed the edges with Distress Ink in Vintage photo. I am not happy tearing books - but this sheet of music had been part of some  items in a small card making kit. So, I didn't feel so bad using it. The Beethoven image is a stamp - again unsure of make. I have wanted to make a

 ..... a video by Natasha Foote. Good afternoon everyone I hope you are well.  Recently, I revisited the videos on YouTube by Natasha Foote. Here is the latest card I created using the idea from the video.  See link at the end of the post. My first attempt did not work, I guess I hadn't fully taken on her, reasonably easy, instructions. So, I went back & tried again. It really was so easy I felt stupid. The design works for me. on 2 counts.  One, it produces a clean & simple card, & two it uses up more of those scraps we all have.  I say clean & simple but of course it can be more "lively & bold" if you so choose. Its a good design for small bulk card making as well.  Why not, every so often have a session of cutting up your strips, build a collection then sit & create!  I might think about this one for some of my Christmas cards!! Here is a link to the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDsVS-nydrU Why not make a couple?  There is quite a bit o

Good afternoon everyone. Another weekend is upon us plus it is another bank holiday! Just recently a colleague in one of my clubs gave us a project for a different card. It had a flap front. Here is the card I made; The centre panel is actually a slim tent fold card which is glued to a square piece  of cardstock, after adding DSP layer. The banner across the centre is also a flap. The stamped images are from new stamps, to me, from Julie Hickey. A week later I decided to make another one. I didn't choose the papers they chose me. As they were laying on my desk close together & I thought it would be a good idea to use them. As the design was fairly dark I added strip gold peel-offs to lift the look. Surprisingly the "Happy Birthday" looks silver but was in fact gold. Have a good Bank Holiday weekend, lets up the weather will be good to us. Thank you for visiting my little crafty space & please call again.

Good evening everyone. A few more cards to show you that I have made recently using papers & toppers in my scraps & bits box. The resulting cards will be added to a collection I am building for a friend who raises funds for his scouts group. There are two photos of DL cards using left over designer paper, & plus some of those lovely toppers from the pads by Crafty Individuals I have quite a lot of those Crafty Individual toppers, as I used to buy quite a lot of their paper pads including in particular the ones full of toppers. I have so much paper & embellishments that I need to use so helping my friend with his fund raising is one way of putting them to good use. Thank you for visiting my little blog I hope you found it interesting.

This was a challenge set by a colleague in one of my stamping groups I belong to.   "To use up our scraps." Good afternoon, by the way, I hope everyone is well. I have been trying to use my scraps for a little while now but put my mind to doing some different styles for this challenge.                     I actually meant to have the second one of this first style with the squares at the top.                                       As they are complete cards I cannot just turn it up the other way.                                  Most of these cards do not have any sentiment on as I prefer to do that                                                         when I know  who it is going to. These next three cards were made from scraps left over from a photo album I have just made, Really pleased with how these turned out, especially the square quilt design. I had wanted to try one of those for some time. I thought I would add some Christmas cards to my stash. The baubles were just